Germany's economic outlook for 2026 is looking pretty modest—analysts are penciling in roughly 1% average growth. But here's the catch: that figure gets a statistical boost from calendar mechanics. Next year has 2.4 extra working days simply because two national holidays plus one regional holiday fall on weekends instead of weekdays. It's a quirk that can skew the numbers. There's a standard economic principle that each additional working day typically translates to a measurable fraction of growth—so strip out the calendar effect, and the real underlying growth picture starts to look even thinner. Worth keeping in mind when you see those headline forecasts.