Corona Aktuell: What does short-time work mean for me?

The massive spread of the corona virus creates economic difficulties for many companies. In order to protect companies from bankruptcy and workers from losing their jobs, more and more companies are now introducing short-time working. What short-time work means and what rules apply to short-time work, we have summarized the explanations of the experts for you here.

What is short-time work?

In an economic crisis such as the corona crisis, companies can reduce their production or services or even shutdown operations to zero.

For employees, this means that they work less hours or not at all, but that their wages are sometimes paid by the Federal Employment Agency for a maximum of 12 months. The so-called Short-time work allowance the employer must apply to the Federal Employment Agency.

If there are exceptional conditions on the entire labor market, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS) can extend the subscription period to 24 months by ordinance.

How much salary do I get during short-time work?

Employees without children receive a short-time allowance 60 percent of the previous flat-rate net salary. Working parents with children received 67 percent. The employer has the opportunity to top up the short-time work benefit from his own resources. However, there is no legal entitlement to such an increase.

The employment agency provides a table for calculating the short-time work benefit.

All employees who are insured in the unemployment insurance can receive the short-time work benefit. The employer is reimbursed for social security contributions. Temporary workers can also receive short-time work benefits.

Can I have a part-time job during short-time work?

Yes, you can. If you already had a part-time job before the introduction of short-time work, you can continue it. The income earned from this is not counted towards the short-time allowance.

Basically, you can also take on a new part-time job during short-time work. The resulting wage is then counted towards the short-time allowance.

According to the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, an exception applies until October 31, 2020 in "systemically relevant" areas, such as healthcare or energy supply. Earnings from these areas are not counted towards short-time allowance unless they exceed the amount of wages before short-time work.

The employment agency may also ask you to accept a job and suggest suitable positions. If you do not take up work, as with unemployment benefit, there is a risk that the short-time allowance will be reduced for a period of up to three weeks.

Can I refuse short-time work?

If the subject of short-time work is not contractually regulated in the employment contract, collective agreement or in a company agreement, the employer must obtain your consent for short-time work, explains lawyer Sandra Runge from the blog "smart-mama.de". This could be refused. A one-sided arrangement is not permitted. However, the topic is very complex and a refusal of consent could possibly lead to termination.

The legal experts from "anwalt.de" explain: "Because of the so-called prohibition of measures (§ 612a BGB), the employment relationship may not be terminated due to the refusal to consent to short-time work. However, the employee must then give notice of change to reduce working hours or a termination for operational reasons (such as "zero" for short-time work). However, the conditions of the Protection against Unfair Employment Act (KSchG) must be checked in individual cases for these redundancies.

So if you do not want to agree to short-time work, for example because you fear high losses in parental allowance, the legal expert recommends that you first negotiate with the employer and, for example, take vacation time, reduce overtime or only agree to short-time work for a limited period of time. However, since short-time work basically serves to preserve the company and thus jobs, it should be pertinent to agree to short-time work, according to the experts.

What does short-time work mean for parental allowance?

So far, short-time work can have a negative impact on parental allowance. Expectant parents, who have to work short-time because of the corona crisis, face high losses. The reason for this is that the parental allowance is calculated on the basis of the 12 months before the start of the maternity leave period. The parental allowance is then between 65% and 100% of the net income, you will therefore receive a minimum of € 300 and a maximum of € 1,800.

If you do not receive a regular salary in these 12 months, but rather so-called "wage replacement benefits", such as short-time work benefits, this will not be taken into account when measuring parental allowance. This means: As an expectant mother, you will earn less money during short-time work and you will also have to cope with a lower parental allowance afterwards.

As this problem affects many people, the Minister for Family Affairs Franziska Giffey has already taken action. She wants to change the calculation mode for parental allowance and has proposed to exclude the period of the pandemic in future parental allowance calculations. Discussions are currently taking place, but no arrangements have yet been made.

In this article, we explain what expectant parents can already do to protect themselves from losses in parental allowance due to short-time work: Corona crisis & parental allowance: Short-time work leads to massive losses.

Would you like to exchange ideas with others about corona virus? Then take a look at our BRIGITTE community.

Sources used: arbeitsagentur.de, dgb.de, t-online.de, sueddeutsche.de, smart-mama.de, anwalt.de