BERLIN, Feb 14, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Since losing her job as a school bus driver
in November, German mum-of-two Viola Auer has had to rely on the generosity
of neighbours and a small disability allowance to get by during the pandemic.
“Who cares about us, Germany’s working poor?” she asked.
Auer, 47, is one of many Germans in so-called mini-jobs — part-time,
easily terminated contracts that allow workers to earn a maximum of 450 euros
($545) a month.
Though flexible and tax-free, these jobs are also extremely precarious and
not covered by Germany’s vaunted furlough scheme.
As Europe’s top economy feels the strain from months of coronavirus
restrictions, these workers have been declared the “biggest losers of the
crisis” by the German Institute for Economic Research.
When she lost her job, Auer received no severance pay.
“I’m keeping my head high and trying to keep going,” she said.
Auer is now applying for welfare benefits and looking for another part-time
job in her home town of Singen, southwestern Germany.
It is a familiar story for many “mini-jobbers”, the majority of whom are
women.
The latest official figures show that more than 870,000 mini-jobs have
disappeared in the last year, bringing the total to its lowest level since
2004.
– Ticking time bomb –
Vacancies have dwindled particularly in the hotel and restaurant sectors,
which have been among the hardest hit by shutdowns imposed to slow the
infection rate.
One of those affected is 67-year-old Matthias Eichner, who took on a part-
time catering job in the eastern city of Goerlitz four years into his
retirement.
“At my age, I’d have liked to be peacefully seeing to my garden, but with a
pension of only 1,000 euros, I don’t have a choice,” he sighed.
But the Covid-19 curbs have forced his employer to drastically reduce his
hours.
Around a quarter of Germany’s mini-jobbers are at least 60 years old and 91
percent of them have no higher education. Having increased in number by 43
percent between 2003 and 2019, mini-jobbers now make up 7.6 million of
Germany’s 42 million workers.
Mini-jobs were invented in the 1970s, but proliferated after the
liberalisation of the labour market under former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
in the early 2000s.
They are one of the reasons why Germany’s unemployment rate has fallen from
a spike of 11.5 percent in 2005 to record lows of around five percent before
the pandemic struck.
In January, the jobless rate stood at six percent.
Yet many believe that the insecure mini-jobs are a ticking time bomb which
will leave many workers with insufficient pensions on which to retire.
Eichner said the existence of mini-jobs was “shameful” and that Germany
should provide pensions that allowed people “to live in dignity”.
– ‘Miserable’ –
Such concerns have been sharpened by the social crisis caused by the
pandemic.
“Mini-jobs are not a good long-term solution,” Karin Schulze Buschoff of
the German Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI) told AFP.
She cautioned that such workers could face poverty in their old age, not
having paid as much in social security contributions over the years as those
in standard employment.
She suggests lowering the 450-euro earnings cap in order to make mini-jobs
less attractive.
By contrast, Holger Schaefer of the business-friendly German Economy
Institute (IW) calls for the removal of restrictions.
“There could be more stable employment if those people could work more
hours,” said Schaefer.
While Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats and the Green party advocate
reforming and improving the mini-jobs system, the far-left Die Linke party is
calling for it to be abolished entirely ahead of parliamentary elections this
September.
“Even before the crisis, we knew that mini-jobs had miserable working
conditions and salaries nobody could live on,” the Left’s labour policy
spokesperson Sabine Zimmermann told AFP.
“The pandemic just exposed that lack of protection.”