Part of it is playing catch-up with Germany but another part of it is that the Germans restructured their economy quite a bit to reach as close to full employment as they are. I'm having a hard time finding any sources to link to but they provide a lot of government incentives for hiring part-time workers and income top-ups for those workers. As their exports have experienced growth the income has been spread out as it increased. These other nations just enjoyed a huge influx of private credit to rev up their economies - no plan, no accounting for the long-term impact of the changes.