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The German Whistleblower Protection Act (“Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz”, HinSchG) has finally entered into force.

Severance payments are commonplace in the case of termination of employment contracts by mutual agreement. But what are the right legal steps to take and, above all, what sums should employers expect to pay their employees?

As an employer, you are obliged to issue and submit various certificates at the request of former employees or the Employment Agency. Since 1 January 2023, this is no longer possible in paper form, but electronic transmission via the so-called electronic notification procedure BEA (“Bescheinigungen elektronisch annehmen“, meaning "accept certificates electronically") is mandatory.

The German government is currently working on a draft law to simplify the immigration of skilled workers and has published the key points of the proposed draft.

When employing in Germany, employers will face additional costs on top of gross salary as contracted with their staff. German social security contributions can amount to > EUR 1,400 each month, so an extra 17k annually.
Generally speaking, half of social security contributions are paid by employing companies (on top of gross salary) while the other half is to be paid by employees. Still, the employer is obliged to do all payroll deductions and transfer the amounts to respective insurances and the wage tax authority. In return, German employees are covered under health insurance, nursing care insurance, unemployment insurance and the statutory pension system.

In its decision of 13 September 2022 (1 ABR 22/21), the Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht - BAG) established the obligation to record working time resulting from Section 3 (2) 1 of the German Occupational Health and Safety Act (ArbSchG). The reasons for the decision, which have now been published, show which concrete implementation obligations employers have to comply with and what leeway (still) exists in the implementation.

A recent wake-up call from Germany's highest labour court, but merely "old wine in new bottles": Already in 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that employers must provide an objective, reliable and accessible time recording system (ECJ, judgment of 14 May 2019 – C-55/18). Since this decision, the German legislator has also been called upon to adapt the German Working Time Act to EU law in accordance with the ECJ's requirements. The Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht – BAG) has now ruled that employers are already obliged to introduce a system to record the working time worked by employees (Federal Labour Court, decision of 13 September 2022 – 1 ABR 22/21).

In Companies there are employees who achieve significantly worse work results than their colleagues. What options does an employer have if such a low-performer is employed by him? The Cologne Federal Labour Court recently ruled that the dismissal of a low-performer was justified, which you should be aware of (Cologne Federal Labour Court, ruling of 3 May 2022 - 4 Sa 548/21).