Comment by cardanome
10 days ago
Here in Germany you are currently only allowed to work 48hours per week. Also there are strict laws for companies to actually track work time.
So it is absolutely impossible for someone here to have two full time jobs without committing working time fraud.
But even if you could, it would make literally no sense two have jobs as you earn vastly more with freelancing anyway. You would scam yourself.
The most optimal move is to have one regular job so you get health care and social security and do freelancing on the side. If you work contract allows that, of course.
not only that but the german tax system is designed in a way to make holding multiple jobs as unattractive as possible.
Really? Like, in Germany it's illegal for someone to have a full-time job doing software and then a side business making soap and selling it at a farmer's market on the weekend?
That's... peculiar.
No, that case would be fine if the side business would be being self-employed. No one cares how many hours you work if you are self-employed. (Mostly, I am simplifying here)
What is an issue is working employed for two jobs and going over the 48 hour limits.
Working that much is very unhealthy so the state needs to protect people from being exploited. People should be able to live from working full time. Having to work multiple jobs and to destroy your own health is morally abhorrent.
Under German law being employed by a company and being self-employed are legally very distinct things. If you are employed you get protection from being fired, you have to have health care, pay into the retirement fond and so on.
If you are self-employed you are on your own. You can decide if you use public or private health care, you need to figure out how to save up for retirement yourself and so own. You get more freedom but less protection. That is because the law realizes that working people need protection from exploitation but also wants to give freedom to those that want to try their own business.
> Working that much is very unhealthy so the state needs to protect people from being exploited.
I get that the state needs to protect people from being exploited but I'm not sure this is the right way to go about it.
It seems to me that it would be better if the state had policies in place to ensure that one full-time job (or less even) provided sufficient income to enable a person to live self-sufficiently and raise a family.
Working a full-time job and raising a family is often a more stressful thing than a single person working a job that requires over-time. I don't see why the state should regulate how someone without kids spends their free time if that person wants to work.
Some people are just naturally inclined to be active, whether it's some combination of work, family, volunteering, and sports activities while others are not. I have a friend who is constantly working and constantly going to concerts and playing on several sports teams. His life seems stressful to me and far beyond how I want to spend my life but he enjoys it.
The state shouldn't restrict people from choosing how to spend their time, but instead should strive to create a society where people aren't forced to spend too much of their time working to meet their basic needs, with the ultimate goal of gradually reducing the time needed to do so over time.
6 replies →
Yes! It basically means you go full on freelance or just stay put with whatever job you have. I wanted to try freelancing before I quite my full time job but it's not that easy legally.
I am a bit confused why you think it is not easy. In fact you have the right to reduce your hours from full time to part time if your company employs more than 15 people. So you can easily make time for a freelancing job on the side.
Also you don't really need to track your hours when freelancing other than maybe for billing purposes so you really don't need to worry about hours anyway. Generally you are considered part-time self-employed when doing less than 18 hours per week.
Earning a bit on the side is really not an issue in Germany. In fact the combination of having a part time employed job and then doing freelancing is very popular.
What doesn't work is being full time employed at two companies but that would make no sense even if you could as you would earn much less and pay insane taxes.
1 reply →