ARTICLE · 10 MARCH 2025

Short-time Work Allowance - New Framework Conditions As Of July 2023

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Six million employees were on short-time work (›Kurzarbeit‹) in spring 2020. 45.5 billion euros were spent by the German government on short-time work benefits between 2020 and 2022.

GermanyEmployment and HR

Lucas Gropengießer

Six million employees were on short-time work (:Kurzarbeit9) in spring 2020. 45.5 billion euros were spent by the German government on short-time work benefits between 2020 and 2022. These figures speak for themselves: short-time work allowance (KUG) is a tried-and-tested instrument for keeping employees in the company during difficult economic times. Now Hubertus Heil, Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, has announced that easier access to short-time work allowance will not be extended.

Employees must again build up negative working time balances, as they did before the crisis, before short-time work takes effect - if this type of working time flexibilization is common in their company. In addition, in the future at least one-third of employees in a company must again be affected by short-time work, compared to ten percent in the past.

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