I live in Germany. Coming from The Netherlands, it surprises me how inefficient Germany often is. A lot of administration is still done on paper. Government organisations barely communicate, e.g. probably half of my non-native co-workers had taxation problems in their first months as a result of that. For every minor thing, you have to fill in a form.

The private sector is not much better. E.g. in NL I could arrange virtually all my banking affairs via internet. Here, except for some internet banks (such as the non-German ING DiBa), you have to go to an office to arrange anything. In NL, most local branches are gone from villages and are slowly retracting from cities as well. Here you have many branches in a small city, with many employees (probably because stuff is all handled on paper) and royal interiors. And then you have to go to the bank every couple of weeks to print your statements using a machine (I am not making this up).

Compared to Northern European countries, there is a huge space for increasing efficiency.

there is no minimum salary

Yes. This is I dislike very much too, it's hard to see people working hard, only earning a few Euros per hour in an extremely rich society. Luckily, Germany may finally see a minimum wage now that the SPD is part of the government again.