Europe’s leading economy is experiencing a shortage of laborers. More and more people are warning that, unless Germans and others work more, Europe’s economy will suffer. “We all have to work more. We have to think more about the common good,” Thomas de Maizière said to the occasion of the 38th German Protestant Kirchentag (June 7–11), where he served as the event’s president.

Political scientist and columnist Daniel Dettling wrote:

By 2035, the country [Germany] will lack more than 7 million workers. The labor shortage is becoming the biggest brake on growth in Europe. Daycare centers are closing earlier because there is a shortage of educators, schools are resorting to lateral entrants and reintroducing online teaching, and there is a shortage of hundreds of thousands of staff in clinics and nursing homes. If the demographic turnaround is not to lead to a loss of prosperity and care, intelligent solutions are needed, not taboos. If there is a shortage of young people, we need to tap into the “hidden reserves.”

One of these “hidden reserves” is increasing work hours. Prof. Michael Hüther, director of the Executive Committee of the German Economic Institute, claimed in an interview with the Salzburger Nachrichten published on June 17: “If people in Germany worked two hours more per week, we could compensate for the demographic loss in the volume of work by 2030.” Others believe this number needs to be higher: The president of the Federation of German Industries believes Germans have to work four more hours a week.

According to Bild: “[C]ompanies nationwide are unable to fill around 1.7 million positions.” Dr. Rainer Dulger, president of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations, told Bild his solution: “Germany needs to roll up its sleeves again. We won’t be able to cope with climate change, demographics and digitization with low weekly and annual working hours, shorter working lives and very high wage costs at the same time.”

Bild quoted the head of the German Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, who demands: “Neither trade unions nor the state should ever further restrict entrepreneurial freedoms. In times of recession and a shortage of skilled workers, this is especially true with regard to working hours. Here, the legislator must show itself to be adaptable and also allow an increase in weekly working hours above 40 hours.”

We see a similar trend in other European countries. “To counteract the shortage of skilled workers, we need to increase the volume of work performed instead of thinking about further reductions,” Daniella Lützelschwab, head of the Labor Market Department at the Swiss Employers’ Association, said. The trend is also not just limited to the workforce. Some in Germany even claim students need to go back to a six-day school week.

Germany is the engine of the European Union. If Germans have to work more, they will likely demand the same for the rest of the union. This may pave the way for an astonishing Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

While God’s Word, the Holy Bible, strongly advocates for good work ethic and even commands that one labor six days a week, it also commands to rest on the Sabbath (Exodus 20; request a free copy of Which Day Is the Christian Sabbath? for more information). Yet a prophecy in Revelation 13 reveals that Europe will go back to a six-day workweek and enforce Sunday rest. (You can read about this in detail in Herbert W. Armstrong’s booklet Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast?)

If Germans are mandated to increase work hours, the EU, encouraged by the Catholic Church, could step in to ensure people rest on Sunday—just like Mr. Armstrong indicated Europe would. The legal basis for this already largely exists.

Watch for this trend to further develop. As Mr. Armstrong warned, Sunday observance was enforced in Europe once and will be enforced again. “Laws became so strict no man could hold a job, or engage in business, unless he worked on Saturday and rested on Sunday. And the world will be so geared that it will be almost impossible for one to ‘buy or sell’ except he receive this mark of the beast!” To understand what the mark of the beast truly is, request a free copy of Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast?

Our world is about to dramatically change and our only hope for the future is to understand God’s prophecies.