Germany’s mini-jobbers are mostly women, very often get low wages – and often only have a fixed-term contract. That is the result of an evaluation of the wage and labor market statistics of the Federal Employment Agency and the Federal Statistical Office for the Left in the Bundestag. The evaluation that the Süddeutsche Zeitung is available, sheds light on the profile of the typical mini-jobbers in the country. It should fuel the debate as to whether mini-jobs should in fact be expanded, as stated in the coalition agreement.
The SPD, Greens and FDP had agreed to raise the income limit for mini-jobs from 450 to 520 euros – in parallel with the increase in the minimum wage to twelve euros per hour. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has stated several times that the higher minimum wage should take effect next year – this would also put the new rules for mini jobs into force. Experts expect that their number will therefore continue to rise.
According to official statistics, a good 60 percent of people in mini-jobs were women. The figures refer to the latest available data from 2018, however the number of mini-jobs has hardly changed since then. More than three quarters of mini-jobbers, 77.6 percent, earned less than twelve euros an hour, which means they were below the planned minimum wage. Because of the wage increases in the meantime, this proportion is likely to be somewhat lower today. In contrast, low wages were much less common among employees subject to social insurance contributions. Here only about every sixth employee was below the twelve euros per hour. So poor pay is much more widespread among mini jobbers than among people who have a regular job. Almost every fifth mini jobber only had a temporary job.
Mini-jobs are easier to handle for employers and employees than jobs subject to social insurance, because mini-jobs involve less administrative work. Employees usually save their own social security contributions, so they can post gross for net income.
However, this means that mini-jobbers are much less socially secure than with a regular job. If they lose their job, the unemployment benefit is insufficient and they immediately fall into the basic security. They are also not entitled to short-time work benefits and in fact hardly any protection against dismissal. This was particularly evident in the Corona crisis, when many mini-jobbers became unemployed.
The number of mini-job positions has now grown significantly again. The Federal Statistical Office puts the figure at 5.6 million in 2018, the Federal Employment Agency (BA) currently at 7.3 million. According to the BA, the difference has methodological reasons, for example the employment agency also records jobs that have not existed for a whole month. Further points of criticism: mini-jobs are not the starting point for regular employment, as hoped. Employer representatives, on the other hand, argue that mini-jobs have created many new jobs.
The initiator of the request, Pascal Meiser (Linke), said that for most of them mini-jobs represent a “poverty trap”. With the increase in the minimum wage to twelve euros, there is now an opportunity to help millions of mini-jobbers get employment subject to social security contributions. “This opportunity must not be gambled away lightly by raising the mini-job limit without need.”