Which benefits am I entitled to as a part-time employee in Germany?
Almost two out of five employees in Germany work part-time, according to figures from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) for the first quarter of 2025.
All regularly employed workers in Germany are entitled to certain benefits, but the amount of paid time off or other benefits you are entitled to does depend on how many hours you work in some cases.
So what entitlements do part-time employees have in Germany regarding holidays, special payments, bonuses and the like? Here's what you need to know:
Vacation days
Full-time employees at many German companies receive up to 30 days of vacation a year. However, the minimum requirement according to German labour law is at least 20 days per year for workers on a five-day work week.
"Part-time employees have the same entitlement, provided they work every day of the week,"
Daniel Stach, an employment lawyer at the Verdi federal board, told the German Press Agency.
But if part-time work is spread across fewer weekly working days, then your vacation entitlement is adjusted accordingly.
So if a company offers 30 vacation days for employees who work five days per week, then employees who work four days per week would be entitled to 80 percent of the benefit. Their vacation entitlement would therefore be 24 days (calculated as follows: 30 x 4 / 5 = 24).
In effect, part-time workers are entitled to the same number of weeks of vacation as full-time employees - but they get fewer paid days off because they work fewer days per week.
Advertisement
When part-time work is irregular, it's calculated based on the total number of working days over a longer period. If an employee works 150 days per year, for example, their benefit would be calculated like this: 30 (vacation days for full-time employees) divided by 260 (annual working days of the company) multiplied by 150 (working days of the part-time employee per year) resulting in 17.30 vacation days per year.
Special payments & bonuses
Employees may be entitled to special payments, like Christmas or holiday bonuses, if these are stipulated in their employment contract.
If so, part-time employees are entitled to at least a portion of the bonus payments, usually calculated pro rata depending on their working days.
Regarding anniversary bonuses or loyalty bonuses for long-term employees, part-time employees are typically entitled to the same amount as full-time employees.
If there's any doubt about bonus entitlements, employees are advised to check their employment contracts and / or ask their works council, trade union or a specialist employment lawyer.
READ ALSO:
Can I be paid in Germany for any holiday I don't take?
Overtime pay
According to German labour law - specifically the Part-Time and Fixed-Term Employment Act - part-time employees must be granted "every divisible benefit...that corresponds to the proportion of the working time...comparable to a full-time employee."
This also extends to overtime pay.
So part-time workers should also be paid more for hours worked overtime, which typically starts after eight hours of work in a single day or after 48 hours of work in a working week.
Exceptions to this are permissible if an employer can present objective reasons to justify different treatment based on the nature of the work.
Care-taker's leave
Employees can take up to six months of care leave to care for a close relative who requires care level 1 at home.
READ ALSO:
Can I get time off for moving house in Germany?
Advertisement
According to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, this applies to both full-time and part-time employees, who have the option of being released from work completely or partially.
In order to better secure their livelihood during this time, they can also apply for an interest-free loan from the Federal Office for Family and Civil Society Tasks (BAFzA).
With reporting by DPA.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Local Germany
3 hours ago
- Local Germany
Germany factory output hits lowest level since Covid pandemic
Factory output fell 1.9 percent month-on-month, federal statistics agency Destatis said, steeper than a drop of 0.5 percent forecast by analysts polled by financial data firm FactSet. There were particularly heavy falls in the machinery and pharmaceutical sectors, helping to drag overall output down to levels last seen in May 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. Destatis also made a major revision to May industrial production data, saying the indicator fell 0.1 percent. It had previously reported a healthy rise of 1.2 percent. ING bank analyst Carsten Brzeski said the dire data could prompt a downward revision to an already poor initial estimate showing that the economy shrank slightly in the second quarter. "This is bad news," he said. "At face value, industry remains stuck in a very long bottoming out." EXPLAINED: How will the new US tariffs affect Germany? Political setback Fixing the eurozone's traditional export powerhouse has been a key priority for Germany's new conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with the economy battered in recent years by high energy costs and fierce Chinese competition. Plans to spend hundreds of billions of euros on infrastructure upgrades and rearmament -- combined with a series of brighter data releases since the start of the year -- had raised hopes that the worst might be over for Europe's export champion. German business morale rose to its highest level in July after seven straight increases, while think tanks including the respected DIW institute have revised growth forecasts up for 2025 and 2026. But hard data on business activity has not been as rosy, raising fears that the improved mood was down to unfounded optimism. Experts say better data early in the year was the temporary effect of US "front-loading" as American customers rushed to get orders in before Trump's tariffs took effect. Advertisement "Optimism still seems to be based on a big portion of wishful thinking and is not at all matched by current data," Brzeski said. "For now, what looked like a cyclical rebound in the making has only been US front-loading." Tariff troubles A new baseline US levy of 15 percent on EU exports took effect Thursday, up from 10 percent in effect since April, stiffening the tariff faced by Germany's exporters even while leaving many of them mired in uncertainty. READ ALSO: Kitas and Deutschlandticket - What Germany plans to spend money on in 2026 Export data released Thursday showed that German exports in June to the United States -- the country's biggest trading partner -- fell 2.1 percent, even as they rose 0.8 percent worldwide. And data released Wednesday showed that industrial orders -- closely watched as an indicator of future business activity -- fell 1.0 percent month-on-month in June, after dropping 0.8 percent in May. Advertisement The United States is also carrying out investigations into sectors including pharmaceuticals and semiconductor equipment, heightening worries about worse to come. "The tariffs are a big burden for German companies," the head of the German chambers of commerce, Helena Melnikov, told AFP. "Don't forget that tariffs were usually between zero and about two percent at the most beforehand." "It could even come out worse for a variety of sectors because negotiations are ongoing," she added. "It is a real setback and makes it harder to do business in Germany."
Int'l Business Times
4 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Germany Factory Output Lowest Since Pandemic In 2020
German industrial production slumped in June to its lowest level since the pandemic in 2020, data showed Thursday, underlining the fragility of Europe's top economy even before US President Donald Trump's new tariffs kicked in. Factory output fell 1.9 percent month-on-month, federal statistics agency Destatis said, steeper than a drop of 0.5 percent forecast by analysts polled by financial data firm FactSet. There were particularly heavy falls in the machinery and pharmaceutical sectors, helping to drag overall output down to levels last seen in May 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. Destatis also made a major revision to May industrial production data, saying the indicator fell 0.1 percent. It had previously reported a healthy rise of 1.2 percent. ING bank analyst Carsten Brzeski said the dire data could prompt a downward revision to an already poor initial estimate showing that the economy shrank slightly in the second quarter. "This is bad news," he said. "At face value, industry remains stuck in a very long bottoming out." Fixing the eurozone's traditional export powerhouse has been a key priority for Germany's new conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with the economy battered in recent years by high energy costs and fierce Chinese competition. Plans to spend hundreds of billions of euros on infrastructure upgrades and rearmament -- combined with a series of brighter data releases since the start of the year -- had raised hopes that the worst might be over for Europe's export champion. German business morale rose to its highest level in July after seven straight increases, while think tanks including the respected DIW institute have revised growth forecasts up for 2025 and 2026. But hard data on business activity has not been as rosy, raising fears that the improved mood was down to unfounded optimism. Experts say better data early in the year was the temporary effect of US "front-loading" as American customers rushed to get orders in before Trump's tariffs took effect. "Optimism still seems to be based on a big portion of wishful thinking and is not at all matched by current data," Brzeski said. "For now, what looked like a cyclical rebound in the making has only been US front-loading." A new baseline US levy of 15 percent on EU exports took effect Thursday, up from 10 percent in effect since April, stiffening the tariff faced by Germany's exporters even while leaving many of them mired in uncertainty. Export data released Thursday showed that German exports in June to the United States -- the country's biggest trading partner -- fell 2.1 percent, even as they rose 0.8 percent worldwide. And data released Wednesday showed that industrial orders -- closely watched as an indicator of future business activity -- fell 1.0 percent month-on-month in June, after dropping 0.8 percent in May. The United States is also carrying out investigations into sectors including pharmaceuticals and semiconductor equipment, heightening worries about worse to come. "The tariffs are a big burden for German companies," the head of the German chambers of commerce, Helena Melnikov, told AFP. "Don't forget that tariffs were usually between zero and about two percent at the most beforehand." "It could even come out worse for a variety of sectors because negotiations are ongoing," she added. "It is a real setback and makes it harder to do business in Germany."
Local Germany
7 hours ago
- Local Germany
EXPLAINED: How will the new US tariffs affect Germany?
Following an agreement between the EU and US President Donald Trump , new tariffs – set at 15 percent on most European goods imported into the US – have come into force as of Thursday morning. Germany, along with most nations that engage in trade with the US, has been rocked by a whirlwind of different tariffs and tariff threats from the US since the Trump administration took control in January. Previous tariff announcements, as well as retaliatory tariff announcements by the EU, had elicited grave warnings from economists and business interests and sent global economies into a period a deep uncertainty. With various tariffs at various rates having been applied and then altered or repealed many times over, you may be wondering, what does any of this really mean? Here's an overview of what the latest tariffs mean for people living in Germany. How will the 15 percent tariff affect me? Assuming you're not a major investor in a German export business, you probably wont notice the effects of the US tariffs, at least not directly. The 15 percent import duty is to be levied on products from Germany that are sold in the US, so US-based companies and customers will be the ones to pay those higher prices. Retaliatory tariffs would have affected prices for European consumers directly, but now that an agreement has been reached between Trump and the EU Commission, the EU has suspended any countermeasures for at least six months. So consumers in Germany don't need to worry about immediate tariff related price increases. READ ALSO: Why gas bills in Germany are set to get cheaper US made cars could actually get cheaper in Europe, because the recent trade agreement will see the EU scrap protectionary tariffs on American autos, which were previously set at ten percent. (But US car makers are affected by tariffs on parts and materials that they import from around the world, including Europe, so those car prices could rise as well.) Advertisement How will German companies be affected? As opposed to consumers, German companies could be more directly impacted by the tariffs if they end up losing business in the US due to increased prices on their products there. According to a report by Welt, some big German companies are well positioned, thanks to having previously set up manufacturing plants in the US. This includes the gummy-bear maker Haribo, for example, and the tech giant Siemens. Interestingly, many small and midsized German manufacturers are not as concerned about the tariffs – especially those who say their products are specialised enough that they cannot be replaced by US-made alternatives. Billion-dollar agreements On top of the 15 percent tariff rate, the EU has agreed to buy energy from the US worth $750 billion (€650 billion), as well as agreeing that a further $600 billion (nearly €520 billion) is to be invested in the US. Advertisement It's unclear if that latter investment is a realistic sum. The EU Commission has suggested that European companies have expressed interest in making those investments but says it's ultimately up to them. Trump has spoken of the potential investments as a gift. While the trade agreement appears heavily slanted in favour of the US, European leaders , including Chancellor Friedrich Merz , have suggested that accepting the tariffs and trade terms is the best option. "We have thus managed to preserve our fundamental interests, even if I would have wished for more relief…" he said shortly after the deal was announced.
