Carsten Linnemann, general secretary of the CDU, said he does not think abolishing mini‑jobs should become the centrepiece of the labour debate.
“Quite a lot of people take a mini‑job because their main job leaves them with too little net income” he told the TV station Welt on Wednesday.
“It isn’t the gross wages in Germany that are too low, but the net wages. We don’t want to take away mini‑jobs from those who need them to afford extra vacation or to cover their living costs” he added.
“If we can increase net take‑home pay from primary jobs by cutting social contributions and providing tax relief, then we can talk about the details of mini‑jobs” Linnemann explained.
“But we can’t tell people who rely on a mini‑job to survive that we will eliminate them now – to put it bluntly, we won’t do that”.
