It's been just over a year since the legal minimum wage of €8.50 was introduced. This also applies to mini-jobbers and temporary workers, i.e. to pretty much every job that students do . But what is supposed to be the case in theory is far from reality in practice. In the summer semester of 2015, at least one in ten students in a total of five federal states still worked below the legal minimum wage.
Things look worst for students in Saxony. 13.5% percent work there for less than €8.50 per hour, followed by Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (11.5%), Baden-Württemberg (10.5%), Schleswig-Holstein (10.2%) and Thuringia (10%). Only in the two federal states of Hamburg and Saarland is the proportion of students who earn less than the minimum wage less than 5%.
Even among students, men earn more than women
Last year, almost 10% of female students nationwide worked for less than the legal minimum wage. In a nationwide comparison, the rate for male fellow students was just less than 3%. The pay gap between the genders, which extends to the management ranks of large DAX companies, seems to become established during your studies.
The good news is that despite everything, the minimum wage has paid off for students in Germany. Last year the average earnings rose from €9.34 to €9.86.
These figures are based on two nationwide surveys from the “Fachkraft 2020” study series, which Studitemps.de conducted in cooperation with Maastricht University. In total, almost 50,000 students from all over Germany took part in both surveys.
