In focus tests, customs takes on minimum wage sectors such as the hospitality industry or the hairdressing trade.
(Photo: imago/photothek)
Berlin At the beginning of April, the financial control of illegal work (FKS) took on the hairdressing trade. In a nationwide focus test, the customs officers checked whether employees were employed illegally, whether social security contributions were properly paid or whether employees actually received the minimum wage.
In particular, the controls to determine whether the statutory lower wage limit was being adhered to decreased in the first year of the corona pandemic. On the one hand, sectors such as the hospitality industry, where the minimum wage is often paid, were affected by the lockdown. On the other hand, the FKS could not work as usual either, for example due to staff shortages due to quarantine measures.
In the past year, however, the number of controls has increased again, as the response of the federal government to a small inquiry from the left-wing faction shows. While 44,702 employer examinations took place in the first Corona year, there were 48,062 last year. However, the number of checks is still well below the pre-crisis level of 2019 with 54,733 checks.
>> Also read here: Undeclared work in Germany is increasing
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In 2021, the number of administrative offense proceedings initiated for non-payment of the statutory minimum wage fell. Not only did it fall in absolute numbers from 2,719 in the previous year to 1,920. The proportion of administrative offense proceedings initiated in all employer examinations has also fallen from 6.1 to 4.0 percent. In 2019 it was 5.5 percent.
“This development could indicate increased acceptance of the statutory minimum wage by employers,” says the analysis by the deputy chairwoman of the left-wing faction, Susanne Ferschl. The statutory lower wage limit is currently EUR 9.82 gross per hour and will increase to EUR 10.45 on July 1st. From October, the minimum wage is then to be raised to twelve euros by law.
Linke calls for consistent recording of hours worked
Consistent controls are important, especially in view of the planned increase, emphasizes Ferschl. “Because this is the only way to ensure that the increase in wages really reaches the employees.” The government must finally implement the obligation to record working times, as prescribed by the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
Almost three years ago, the Luxembourg judges ruled in a Spanish case that employers must set up a system to measure the daily hours worked by each employee. In the past electoral term, the grand coalition had not agreed on a national implementation of the verdict.
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) now wanted to use the law to raise the mini-job limit, which is to be passed in parallel with the minimum wage law, to enforce stricter obligations to record working hours for certain sectors. After protests from business associations and the coalition partner FDP, he dropped the project again.
“Stop subsidizing the low-wage sector.”
(Photo: IMAGO/Christian Spicker)
As can be seen from the answer of the federal government, it happens again and again that records of the hours worked are not kept in order to cover up minimum wage violations. The FKS also uncovers cases in which employees are reported to the social security agency as marginal part-time employees, although the corresponding mini-job limit is exceeded.
Over 500 instances of minimum wage exceptions
In a second small question, the left-wing faction asked how often employers make use of the exceptional rule of paying newly hired long-term unemployed less than the minimum wage in the first six months.
Immediately after the introduction of the minimum wage, a total of 3,052 cases were reported to the Federal Employment Agency (BA) in 2015 and 2016. In the pre-Corona year 2019, the number of special permits granted had fallen to 723. In 2020 it fell further to 376, before rising again slightly to 504 cases last year.
Left-wing deputy faction leader Ferschl calls for exceptions to the minimum wage to be completely abolished: “Because what employers save, the solidarity community pays in the end. Stop subsidizing the low-wage sector.”
However, the federal government wants to stick to the exemption in order to “give employers incentives to enable the long-term unemployed to enter the labor market”. The number of people who have been unemployed for a year or more rose sharply in the wake of the corona pandemic and was around 955,000 in March.
More on this: This is how the minimum wage in Germany has developed since 2015