These figures make you sit up and take notice in the middle of the Corona crisis: In Lower Saxony, one in five full-time employees is already working at low wages and thus earns less than 2267 euros gross per month. A total of 380,000 employees are affected. These low-wage earners receive less than two-thirds of the median gross income of 3400 euros per month for full-time employees.
This means that Lower Saxony, with a share of low-wage earners of 20.1 percent, comes off worst in West Germany after Schleswig-Holstein with 21.1 percent. Nationwide, the average is 18.8 percent.
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Left MPs: Numbers are alarming
These data come from a response from the Federal Ministry of Labor to a request from the Left Bundestag member Susanne Ferschl from Bavaria and her party friend Jutta Krellmann from Lower Saxony and other members of the Left Bundestag faction. Our newspaper has the answer. According to Krellmann, the numbers are already alarming. The key date – December 31, 2019 – was before the corona pandemic.
Study: Corona heroes are badly paid
The data is already relentlessly exposing problems. In Lower Saxony, and especially in our region, there is a large gap between poorer rural districts and richer urban districts when it comes to full-time employees. In total, almost 61,000 full-time employees are already working at low wages in our region.
Number of low-wage earners in Helmstedt particularly high
The proportion of low-wage earners is particularly high in Helmstedt at 28.1 percent, followed by the districts of Goslar (25.1), Peine (24.1) and Wolfenbüttel (22.1). They are all above the national average and in some cases far above the national average. In the districts of our region there is still a comparatively moderate proportion of low-wage earners in Gifhorn (18.6 percent) and Göttingen (18.9).
The situation is completely different in the large cities in our region. In Braunschweig, the proportion of full-time employees who work for a low wage is only 16.6 percent. In Salzgitter (10.3 percent), almost every tenth person is affected, and in Wolfsburg with 6.3 percent, almost every twentieth person is affected. Wolfsburg and Salzgitter thus occupy the two top positions in Lower Saxony, while the Helmstedt district, after Cloppenburg and Wittmund, is third from the bottom.
Strong fluctuations in low wages over the past few decades
As already mentioned, a total of almost 61,000 employees currently live on low wages between Harz and Heide. The figures from the Federal Ministry of Labor show that there have been strong fluctuations over the past few decades. Ten years ago, 66,653 full-time employees were still working in our region for low wages. Another ten years earlier, however, there were only 52,827.
The corona pandemic is likely to increase again. Thousands of employees in our region are already on short-time work – this affects the catering industry in particular. Almost two thirds of full-time employees in the catering sector were only receiving a low wage shortly before the corona pandemic. Waiters, cooks and bartenders are all the more low-paid due to the lockdown. This also applies to the cultural sector, logistics and retail, as the evaluation shows.
Krellmann: Collective bargaining coverage must be increased in Lower Saxony
The left-wing member of the Bundestag Krellmann puts her finger in the wound. When asked, she said: “The people in Lower Saxony are still being left behind when it comes to income.” The large low-wage sector is the result of a conscious low-wage policy over many years. With regard to the low-wage earners, Krellmann spoke of the “losers of the pandemic”. She fears a further division in society. “We don’t want to afford that any longer,” she said. She called for work contracts, temporary work and mini-jobs to be radically curbed. Krellmann: “In addition, we must finally succeed in increasing the collective bargaining coverage of companies in Lower Saxony. Nationwide collective agreements must be the rule. Avoidance of tariffs must no longer be worthwhile. ”
Karl-Heinz Ehrenberg, district chairman of the IG Bau Braunschweig-Goslar trade union, is also calling for higher collective bargaining coverage. In our region, in addition to gastronomy and agriculture, building cleaning and floristry are among the sectors in which the least is paid. “The more companies withdraw from collective agreements, the worse the cards the employees have. There is a threat of ever deeper division in the labor market, ”warned Ehrenberg. This is partly exacerbated by the corona pandemic.
Wolfsburg is Lower Saxony’s front runner in terms of gross monthly salaries
What is evident in the case of low wages manifests itself in our region in terms of the average monthly gross salaries. Wolfsburg is again Lower Saxony’s front runner. Here, full-time employees earn EUR 5089 gross per month. Salzgitter follows in second place with 4,347 euros. Braunschweig ranks fourth behind Emden with 3637 euros per month. Noticeable: The first four of this ranking are all VW locations. The fact that Salzgitter is doing so well again is due to the good wages in the city’s large industrial companies: besides VW, these are Bosch, Alstom, Salzgitter AG and MAN. Incidentally, Salzgitter also has one of the highest unemployment rates in Lower Saxony. That too is part of the overall picture. According to the Federal Ministry of Labor, the Helmstedt district is again at the other end of the scale for median containers in Lower Saxony.
Here the average salary for full-time employees is 2905 euros. Only the districts of Cloppenburg and Wittmund are worse off. There are reasonable salaries in the districts of Gifhorn (3349) and Göttingen (3326). But they are – like 84 percent of the districts in Lower Saxony – below the national average of 3,400 euros. The salaries in the districts of Wolfenbüttel (3155), Peine (3096) and Goslar (3022) are sometimes well below this value.
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