{"id":225309,"date":"2025-06-30T00:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T00:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/225309\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T00:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T00:39:15","slug":"german-minimum-wage-set-to-rise-by-about-14-over-the-next-18-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/225309\/","title":{"rendered":"German minimum wage set to rise by about 14% over the next 18 months"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Germany\u2019s minimum wage is set to rise by about 14% over the next 18 months under an agreement that appears to defuse a potentially divisive issue for the new government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A commission in which employers and labor unions are represented recommended on Friday that the minimum wage rise from its current 12.82 euros ($15) per hour to 13.90 euros at the beginning of 2026 and 14.60 euros a year later.<\/p>\n

The head of the panel, Christiane Sch\u00f6nefeld, said it faced \u201ca particular challenge this year in view of the stagnating economy<\/a> and the uncertain forecasts.\u201d She said it conducted \u201cvery difficult talks, which were complicated further by the expectations expressed in public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germany, which has Europe\u2019s biggest economy, has had a national minimum wage since 2015. It was introduced at the insistence of the center-left Social Democrats, who were then \u2014 as they are now now \u2014 the junior partners in a conservative-led government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It started off at 8.50 euros per hour, but the independent commission reviews its level regularly. There has been one political intervention, however: under then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, the government in 2022 ordered an increase to 12 euros an hour, fulfilling a campaign pledge by Scholz.<\/p>\n

In their campaign for this year\u2019s election, the Social Democrats called for an increase to 15 euros. New Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s conservative bloc strongly opposed another government-ordered raise.<\/p>\n

Labor Minister B\u00e4rbel Bas, a leading Social Democrat, said she would implement the commission\u2019s proposal. She said she \u201ccan live well with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course we wanted more for people in this country,\u201d she told reporters. But she praised the panel for reaching consensus on an increase, \u201cbecause it looked for a long time as though we wouldn\u2019t get an agreement at all, and then of course we would have had to talk in the coalition about how to deal with this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Germany\u2019s minimum wage is set to rise by about 14% over the next 18 months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[51,88878,2000,299,1945,4179,1824,36201,7337,285,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-225309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-christiane-schnefeld","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-friedrich-merz","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-germany-government","16":"tag-olaf-scholz","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114769531022161768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}