The “Große Koalition” (the Grand Coalition) recently concluded a variety of legislative projects which will result in additional headaches, administrative hurdles, thresholds and new deadlines for HR professionals and employment experts. Traditionally, labor and employment laws in Germany have tended to be employee friendly. Now it appears that the few remaining employer-friendly laws enacted in the early 1980s to improve overall employment in Germany will also be reversed.
One area subject to challenge is time restricted employment. Until now, German employers could use time restricted employment even without substantive reasons for up to two years. This concept, known by the somewhat technical German term “sachgrundlose Befristung”, became extremely popular due to wide coverage which extended outside the legal press.
Federal Constitutional Court narrows use of time restricted employment contract
In June 2018, the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany (“Bundesverfassungsgericht”) overruled a 2011 judgment of the Federal Labor Court (“Bundesarbeitsgericht”). The Federal Labor Court had ruled that the employer could conclude unfounded time restricted employment contracts provided the employee had not been previously employed by the employer within a three year period. This ruling went beyond the law itself which does not provide for a concrete threshold period but rather prohibits an unfounded time restricted employment contract if the employee was “previously employed” with the same employer.
The Federal Constitutional Court has rejected this approach, holding that setting a three year threshold period is not the role of the judicative power but must be laid down by legislation. Therefore, the three