Not every employee receives holiday pay. The amount also varies greatly from industry to industry.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Some already have it in their accounts, others expect it with their June salary – but around every second employee in Germany is not entitled to it: holiday pay. Only 46 percent of employees in the private sector, i.e. outside the public sector, get it. This includes three quarters of the employees in companies with a collective agreement and 36 percent in companies without a collective agreement.
This was the result of an online survey by the Economic and Social Science Institute (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is close to the trade union, on vacation pay this year. Although the results are not representative, according to the WSI, however, offer a good overview due to the large number of 66,000 participants.
The amount of holiday pay agreed by collective agreement varies greatly depending on the industry. In the middle salary group – i.e. gross monthly salaries between 2300 and 4000 euros – it is between 180 and 2627 euros, according to an evaluation of the WSI collective bargaining archive.
Employees in wood and plastics processing, the paper processing industry and the metal industry receive the most vacation pay. Agriculture and the hotel and catering industry pay the least. So far, there has only been complete harmonization between East and West in the insurance industry, the chemical industry and the building cleaning trade.
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The head of the WSI collective bargaining archive, Thorsten Schulte, said that the vacation pay was “a blessing for many employees this year” in view of the high inflation rates. “It creates a bit of space to bear the significantly increased energy and food prices, even if this could probably be at the expense of the holiday budget.” The problem is that every second person in the study comes away empty-handed. “Especially in the low-wage sector, where this special payment is currently most needed, it is paid out the least.”
East Germans, women, low earners and employees in smaller companies are particularly likely to not receive holiday pay. This is due to the fact that they work more often than average in companies without a collective agreement, which pay out this additional money less often.
In the east, 32 percent of employees receive holiday pay, in the west 48 percent. Almost every second man gets it, and only 41 percent of women. Among low earners with a gross monthly wage of less than 2,300 euros, only 36 percent receive holiday pay. In the salary brackets above, the figure is around 48 percent.
Some industries combine Christmas and vacation pay
In the public sector and in the iron and steel industry, there is no separate vacation pay. It is combined with the Christmas bonus to form a uniform annual special payment.
At Deutsche Bahn AG, for example, it is included in the annual table fee. There is also no collectively agreed vacation pay in the banking industry and in some sectoral collective agreements in the energy industry.
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Compared to the previous year, the collectively agreed vacation pay has increased in half of the 22 sectors examined by the WSI – especially where the vacation pay is set as a certain percentage of the collectively agreed wages, such as in the automotive trade, in retail or in construction.
The increases in holiday pay therefore followed the general tariff increases and were mainly between 1.5 and 3 percent. The highest increase in vacation pay was in the east German construction industry at 5.8 percent and in Brandenburg retail at 5.2 percent.
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