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Digitalization: Ampel agrees on digital employment contracts

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digitalization
Ampel agrees on digital employment contracts

A woman signs an employment contract. photo

© Annette Riedl/dpa

Is digitalization making progress in Germany? Soon, at least contracts will not only be able to be signed in writing.

Employers should respect the conditions of their According to the wishes of the traffic light coalition, employment contracts will no longer have to be handed out to future employees in paper form with a signature. As the SPD, Greens and FDP factions announced on Thursday, a corresponding passage should be inserted into the bill to reduce bureaucracy. The agreement that has now been reached stipulates that text form will be sufficient for the contractual conditions in future instead of written form. This means that an employment contract can be concluded entirely via email.

Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) wrote in a letter to the associations affected by the new regulation: “Specifically, the Evidence Act should in future make it possible to provide proof of the essential contractual conditions in text form, provided that the document is accessible to employees, can be saved and printed out and the employer receives proof of transmission and receipt.” Only if employees request this does the employer have to provide them with written evidence. According to Buschmann, employee leasing contracts should also be concluded by email in the future.

“The regulations will make everyday life easier and at the same time guarantee legal certainty and the interests of employees,” said the parliamentary director of the Green parliamentary group, Irene Mihalic. The solution that has now been found will reduce bureaucracy, but at the same time ensure that documents that can be used as evidence can be requested in the event of a dispute, emphasized Katja Mast (SPD).

Reducing bureaucracy will be “a long-running issue of this legislative period,” promised Buschmann. Last week, the cabinet introduced a Bureaucracy Relief Act IV. It still needs to be finally discussed and decided in the Bundestag and Bundesrat. The draft law provides, among other things, for the retention periods for copies of invoices, bank statements and payrolls to be shortened from ten to eight years.

The obligation to register for German citizens when staying in a hotel will be abolished. In the future, the text form will replace the written form in many regulatory areas of the Civil Code.