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View All NewsGermany — Manpower generally in favour of temporary labour market reforms
09 September 2010
Manpower Germany Managing Director, Vera Calasan, is generally in favour of the labour market reforms proposed by Employment Minister Ursula von der Leyen (Conservative) but warns against over-regulation of the temporary employment sector.
Calasan told German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine "Germany has come out of the crisis so well because employers were quickly able to react to the boom by employing more staff. Temporary employment was very important in this and one in each three new jobs is a temporary job. If we lose this flexibility, employers will become far more reluctant to hire new staff."
Calasan is equally in favour of the minimum wage of 7.60 Euro proposed by the Conservative coalition partners. She said "we are paying that already, anyway and it would do good for the image of the industry".
However, Calasan is not in favour of the proposals by the Free Democrats (government coalition partner to the Conservatives) to introduce the 'equal pay for equal work' concept for temporary employees after an introductory period. The unions, Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Left Party are demanding 'equal pay for equal work' from day one.
Calasan explains "politicians very often only look at one side of the coin. In contrast to France and the Netherlands, where temporary employees lose their jobs when their placement is over, temporary employees in Germany are usually permanent employees to the staffing agency. Temporary employees in Germany prefer this permanent relationship and for that they accept slightly less pay."
Calasan also points out that 'equal pay for equal work' would cause huge administrative problems because final employers in different sectors have different minimum agreements (collective bargaining by industry).
Calasan is, however, confident that Manpower, as a staffing agency giant which operates in 82 countries, would have the resources to cope with the added bureaucratic burden if the government decides to insist on 'equal pay for equal work'. She does point out though that the many smaller temporary employment agencies, which do not have the internal know-how, might find it far more difficult to cope with the added administration.