Dusseldorf – Germany is lagging behind other EU countries with its minimum wage, a study released on Thursday.
“Germany introduced the minimum wage rather late and at a relatively low level,’’ said wage expert Thorsten Schulten.
Schulten helped evaluate the data collected by the Confederation of German Trade Unions’ Hans Boeckler Foundation.
Germany introduced a minimum hourly rate of 8.50 Euros in early 2015, before raising it to 9.35 Euros at the start of this year.
“While the lower limits in Britain and the 21 EU states where minimum wages apply recently rose by six per cent, Germany was significantly behind with an increase of 1.7 per cent,’’ the study found.
Without taking inflation into account, minimum wage levels rose by 4.4 per cent across the European Union and just 0.3 per cent in Germany.
(dpa/NAN)