In Germany a special way to earn money is given. In those jobs people have the possibility to earn up to 400€ non-accessible and without paying taxes. Many people use this option to do a secondary job. Only the employer has to pay a lump sum 30% (health insurance 13%, pension fund 15%, wage tax 2% as of 1st July 2006). It is also possible to carry out a Minijob within 4 weeks for example during seasonal transactions such as Christmas.

In Germany a lot of young people and especially students are doing Minijobs. The working hours are flexible so that they are able to combine the job with their studies. On the other side Minijobs help people to get off of unemployment for a long time. Additionally people who receive financial support by the German state can do Minijobs without losing this support as long as they do not work more than 15 hours per week.

The negative aspect of Minijobs is that most of the people do not have any chances to get a full-time job. That means that they may do not evolve themselves and their level of skills and responsibilities will stay the same. Another problem is that many Minijobber do not know about their rights, although they have the same rights as a full-time employee. Because of their less knowledge they do not sue for their right. The „Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Institut (WSI) der gewerkschaftsnahen Hans-Böckler-Stiftung“ said that Minijobs do not contribute to a development. Many people who receive financial support by the German state do not want to get a full-time job because they earn more if they receive Hartz IV (sepcial type of financial support) and 400€ and have to work less hours.

Because of the high number of Minijobs experts except that the number of unemployed people in Germany will decrease under a number of 3 million. Since the end of September 2010 more than 7.3 million (diagramm) people had a Minijob which is almost 1.3 million more than in 2003. Disclosure to the “Bundesagentur für Arbeit” each fourth employment relationship is on the basis of a Minijob. Around 5 million people work in Minijobs. Most of them work in restaurants, hotels, retail and wholesale trade and in the public health sector. Almost every second work place in the gastronomy is a Minijob.

Sources: http://www.working-in-germany.com/minijob-0159.html

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/0,1518,758944,00.html