With his draft law to increase the minimum wage to 12 euros per hour, Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (SPD) has tackled a first delicate project from the coalition agreement of the traffic light parties.
In addition to the expected criticism from employer representatives of the content of the draft, this now also causes anger and amazement with a flaw: the coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP actually also provides for the earnings limit for so-called mini jobs (previously 450 euros) to be passed to the future to link the amount of the minimum wage, i.e. to raise it at the same time.
But there is nothing in Heil's draft law about this project, which was agreed upon at the urging of the FDP.
Without the higher limit, millions of mini-jobbers would hardly benefit from the higher minimum wage: they would be allowed to work fewer hours in order not to exceed the 450 euro limit.
With today's minimum wage of 9.82 euros, the maximum working time in a mini-job is 10.5 hours per week.
With a minimum wage of 12 euros, it is only 8.6 hours.
Anyone who still works longer would have to fear negative business due to the social security contributions and taxes due beyond 450 euros.
The coalition agreement therefore stipulates that mini-jobs should always be able to work 10 hours;
with a minimum wage of 12 euros, the limit would have to rise to 520 instead of 450 euros.
What is behind the error?
Sectors in which mini-jobs traditionally play a major role, such as retailers, innkeepers and cleaning companies, are particularly irritated.
"Increasing the minimum wage and raising the mini-job limit at the same time are inevitably linked - that's why it is logically the same in the coalition agreement," said Thomas Dietrich, federal guild master of the building cleaning trade, the FAZ money to the employees, and only then will mini-jobs no longer mutate into an instrument for reducing working hours, as we have been slowly experiencing since 2013.”
It is "urgently necessary" to raise the limit to 520 euros and make it dynamic, as "actually agreed in the coalition agreement," warns Stefan Genth, Managing Director of the German Retail Association (HDE).
Likewise Ingrid Hartges from the Hotel and Restaurant Association Dehoga: "Mini-jobs are elementary for our industry, which has to deal with fluctuations in demand like no other," she emphasizes.
At the same time, there are many people, from students to pensioners, who are looking for such part-time jobs.
The question of what lies behind the flaw in Heil's draft is also of interest to the FDP: Since the SPD and the Greens themselves do not consider the higher earnings limit to be urgent, they would lose their most important political leverage if the minimum wage law were to come without mini-job reform.
Pascal Kober, labor market policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, made it clear at the request of the FAZ: "We expect that the Minister of Labor will soon also present a draft law on mini-job earnings limits." The FDP will ensure that the higher minimum wage arrives at mini-jobbers.