In 2020, employees in the eastern German federal states received around 12,000 euros less than employees in western German federal states.
This emerges from a response from the Federal Statistical Office to a request from the left in the Bundestag, which was reported in the newspapers of the Funke media group.
According to this, East German employees in the manufacturing industry and in the service sector earned an average of 39,462 euros gross in 2020 and received an average of 2,642 euros in special payments.
In the federal states of the former Federal Republic, employees received 48,974 euros gross and 5,096 euros in special payments.
This means that employees in eastern Germany earned an average of 11,967 euros less than employees in western Germany.
At the same time, the average paid weekly working time in the east in 2020 was 38.6 hours, higher than in the west with 37.9 hours.
According to the data, in the pre-pandemic year 2019, the difference was even greater at 12,354 euros, the working time difference was 0.5 hours (39.6 hours in the east and 39.1 hours in the west).
The left demanded an equalization of wages.
“Work more and earn significantly less?
The differences between East and West are unacceptable," Dietmar Bartsch, leader of the Left Party, told the Funke newspapers.
He demands equal living conditions and fairness in performance.
“East Germans are clearly neglected.
That urgently needs to change,” warned Bartsch.