WITHThere are still large wage differences between East and West Germany. The median gross monthly salary of a full-time employee subject to social security contributions was EUR 2,890 in East Germany and EUR 3,540 in West Germany, according to a response from the Federal Ministry of Labor to a request from left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch, which is available to the Evangelical Press Service. The difference is 650 euros or 22.5 percent.
The ministry pointed out that the very strong use of short-time working in the Corona crisis had a noticeable impact on the “median wages” of employees in East and West.
The difference on December 31, 2020 is the greatest in the textile industry, at almost 70 percent, but according to the statistics it is also very large in other sectors such as the automotive industry and mechanical engineering, at around 40 percent. Bartsch told the newspapers of the Funke media group, which first reported the numbers, that millions of East Germans were still “second class employees” when it came to pay.
The chairman of the left parliamentary group in the Bundestag called on the traffic light parties SPD, Greens and FDP to “fix the goal of aligning wages in the East by the end of the legislature in 2025” in the coalition agreement.
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