For Marina Gebert it was clear from the start that she would work alongside her studies. She lives in Munich, the apartments are expensive, as are the train tickets to her university in Neu-Ulm. So she looked for a part-time job. “But that wasn’t easy with the changing schedules,” says the 33-year-old. In some weeks she also has time in the afternoon, then again it’s only available on weekends. Sometimes exams are stressful, then she doesn’t work at all. During the semester break she can often do that again. “You can’t get most jobs that way,” says Gebert. “Employers want fixed times.”
Companies find it difficult to deal with flexibility because they lose track. But they urgently need people. And the people, in this case students, need a flexible job, but have a poor overview of the job market. “I’m firmly convinced that it needs a third party to manage it,” says Eckhard Köhn. He is the boss of Jobvalley, a temp agency better known by its old name, Studitemps. Jobvalley is Germany’s largest digital platform for flexible jobs for students and graduates. More than 10,000 work for the Cologne-based company every month, which in turn passes them on to employers such as the Helios clinic chain, the Commerzbank customer center or the Bauhaus chain of DIY stores.
Gebert’s next shift is at the Bauhaus at the weekend. She doesn’t know exactly what she’ll do yet, maybe clean up the warehouse or refill the shelves. At the beginning of the gardening season, Bauhaus also needs a lot of people in the gardening department, so Gebert watered the plants beforehand. “I’m excited,” she says. “There will definitely be a lot of people coming and asking questions about the plants, and I don’t really have a clue about that.” She answers the questions as best she can, mostly it’s just about which shelf you find something on anyway. And she usually knows that.
Companies like Bauhaus have a changing need for employees, and business fluctuates seasonally. From trade fair construction to Santa Claus – for many jobs it is not worthwhile for companies to hire permanent employees. The large temporary work agencies such as Adecco, Manpower or Randstad have specialized in sending full-time temporary workers to companies for several weeks or even months. There was little organization for flexible jobs like the ones Gebert needs. What helped for a long time was the bulletin board on campus. In recent years, more and more companies in the so-called gig economy have been added, such as the taxi alternative Uber or food delivery services that place temporary orders with job seekers, freelancers, part-time workers or students.
Temporary work was often also modern exploitation
Jobvalley wants to revolutionize two job markets at once: temporary work and the gig economy. Flexible work should be better for companies that need short-term help and for young workers who are employed at Jobvalley and, as Köhn puts it, “have a voice towards the company”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft / “In Germany, temporary work has such a bad reputation,” he says. Finally, people were sometimes employed through temporary work agencies, but for long periods of time doing the same work as permanent employees under worse conditions and with fewer labor protections – modern exploitation. But then there were legal changes, which even the head of the temporary employment agency, Köhn, likes. “It’s just not right to outsource the entrepreneurial risk that there is a dip in demand to the employees,” he says. “It needs temporary work, but modernized.”
It’s a huge industry that Köhn has set himself. In the year and a half to June 2021 were noisy Federal Statistical Office an average of 784,000 temporary workers in Germany who are subject to social security contributions or are only marginally employed – this corresponds to a share of 2.1 percent of total employment. The temporary employment industry initially suffered greatly from the consequences of the pandemic. Hardly anyone wanted to book temporary workers, after all, their own employees were on short-time work. But things have been looking up again since the end of 2020. This is important for many people for whom temporary work is a stepping stone to permanent employment. 75 percent of people who have taken up temporary employment from unemployment are employed subject to social security contributions after six as well as twelve months, sometimes also in other sectors. However, temporary work is still hardly digitized. Only in exceptional cases can temporary workers use the digital platform to determine which companies need their workers and when. Market watchers like the consulting firm PWC expect that to change.
“Somehow the variety is also fun.”
Gebert studies game production and management, so it’s about computer games from the idea to marketing. She is tech-savvy and therefore finds it very practical that she can book her shifts entirely via app. At the beginning of each month, she plans when she has time to work. Then she uses the Jobvalley app to see what offers are available and how many euros she can earn per hour. She has been to Bauhaus several times, but has also cleared the shelves in a large department store, sat at the reception desk in a fitness studio and set up the stands at a trade fair, usually for 13 to 15 euros an hour. That can even be more than the permanent employees get. Nevertheless, there were never any conflicts. “My colleagues were always very happy that I was there, because there was usually so much to do and vacancies could not be filled.”
In addition, since the permanent workforce in a changing world of work demands flexibility from their employers, they need more and more people to step in, for example with “parental leave, sabbaticals, shared jobs, short-term projects, order peaks,” says Köhn . Actually, his vision is to provide jobs for all levels of management, from students to top managers. “Actually, we’re much too small,” says the Jobvalley boss. The same business model would also work for people caring for young children who wish to slowly return to the labor market after parental leave. Or “silver agers”, as Köhn says, i.e. older people who no longer want or are able to work full-time and want or need to earn something extra. “And there are also people who want to try out different jobs before they apply,” says Köhn. “Previously, the view of work was different, you really wanted something permanent. Today you might first want to see whether the job in a large corporation is really something for you and not rather the start-up.” Nevertheless, Köhn wants his company to grow slowly and initially focus on students and job starters. Growth capital was also scarce for a long time, and the pandemic slowed it down. Now it looks different again, he says. His company is profitable and has not borrowed any external money since 2015. That could change soon, shortly before the start of the Ukraine war he actually wanted to seek capital.
Marina Gebert might want to look for a permanent student job again at some point. Because sometimes there are not enough shifts for them on offer. There are many students like her in Munich who jump right in when a company like Bauhaus is looking for people. “But it’s just hard to find something permanent,” she says, “when I only know at short notice when I can. And somehow the variety is fun.”