Trend Report

You can find the complete article in the Handelsblatt supplement at www.trend-report.de. 
The direct link to the article is: trendreport.de/neue-regelung-ohne-sinn.

Suzana Bernhard, Managing Director of Dekra Arbeit GmbH, spoke to the TREND REPORT editorial team about the future of temporary work in Germany.

Ms. Bernhard, what are the advantages for temporary workers as a result of the sectoral wage supplements?
First and foremost, they offer many temporary workers an additional financial perspective. Those who have established themselves with the customer and are deployed for longer periods on a project basis benefit from staggered wage increases. Depending on the sector's collective agreement, after just six weeks there are increases of between three and seven percent - and up to 50 percent after nine months. The required alignment with the wages of permanent staff is thus gradually being implemented.

The coalition agreement now stipulates a maximum duration of temporary employment. How do you assess this?
The question is who will benefit from this regulation. Temporary workers who have earned a bonus over a period of months or are simply satisfied with their job will be forced by law to change jobs. Whether they want to or not. And traditional project assignments or parental leave replacements are made unnecessarily difficult from the outset. Even low-skilled workers seeking to re-enter the job market through temporary work are at a clear disadvantage. After all, what company will support a colleague who will be leaving again in the foreseeable future? The maximum assignment period therefore offers temporary workers no further advantages. Quite the opposite.

What alternatives are there to further advance the political demand for equal rights for temporary workers?
Equal rights primarily have to do with appreciation. In financial terms, but also in the way we treat each other. In the public debate, temporary work is often assigned a negative role that it does not deserve. And this inevitably affects the status of temporary workers. This is where we should start and promote the positive aspects of temporary work instead of creating new hurdles with bold regulations. According to a survey, around 90 percent of our temporary workers are satisfied with their employment. And this majority needs to be taken seriously, supported and put on an equal legal footing with all other employees when it comes to issues such as short-time working benefits.

How do you assess the future prospects for temporary work?
The German economy is heavily dependent on the labor market remaining stable. Factors such as training and further education, demographic change and a flexible labor market policy play a decisive role here. German companies need to become increasingly flexible in the face of global competition in order to remain successful in the long term. And personnel services offer numerous solution options that allow me to look positively to the future.

The text is licensed underhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/verfügbar; information on the authors and the license status of integrated media files (such as images or videos) can usually be accessed by clicking on them.the contents may be subject to additional conditions.by using this website, you agree to the terms of use and the privacy policy.

Source: www.trendreport.de

Data:

• dekra_arbeit.pdf (200 KiB)