epd/afp/dpa | Criticism from the left, but also from within our own party: The CDU business wing’s push to abolish the basic legal right to part-time work is met with resistance. The SME and Economic Union wants to submit a corresponding motion entitled “No legal right to part-time lifestyle” at the CDU federal party conference at the end of February, according to the magazine Stern first reported on Sunday.
The leader of the Left Party, Ines Schwerdtner, criticized the demand, as did the leader of the social wing of the Christian Democrats, Dennis Radtke. The economist Marcel Fratzscher warned of damage to the German economy.
The application demands that the current legal entitlement to part-time work should in future only apply “if there is a special justification”. These included raising children, caring for relatives and further training. At the same time, the application states: “Part-time work that is not particularly justified can continue to be mutually agreed between the employment contract parties – but without the statutory right to return to full-time.”
Part-time work is right and necessary for families, care and health, said the chairwoman of the SME and Economic Union, Gitta Connemann Stern. But there is also a dramatic shortage of skilled workers. Voluntary part-time work “for reasons of individual lifestyle” may not be permanently covered by the welfare state.
In the “part-time trap”
The legal right to part-time allows employees to reduce their working hours under certain conditions. In the case of temporary part-time work, you will then automatically return to the previous number of hours. Employers can only reject the application for important operational reasons.
The proposal from the CDU business wing also stipulates that part-time workers can only receive social benefits such as basic security, child allowance and housing benefit if there are special reasons. “The solidarity community must not finance the work-life balance of top-ups,” it said.
The chairman of the Christian Democratic Workers’ Association, Radtke, told the Funke media group that he would also like to see “more people working part-time, which they often perceive as a part-time trap, switching back to full-time.” To do this, however, the framework conditions for childcare and care would have to be improved, which previously made this impossible in some places.
Green parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge also spoke out in favor of this. She also criticized the CDU for using the term “part-time lifestyle” to paint a false picture of the reality of life for women and older people. Anja Piel, board member of the German Federation of Trade Unions, warned: “This proposal takes us back to the Stone Age in terms of equality policy and also completely misses the point in terms of labor market policy.”
The President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Marcel Fratzscher, said Rhenish Posta restriction on the legal right to part-time work would “go strongly against the wishes of many Germans, thereby tending to reduce rather than increase employment and thus further increase the shortage of skilled workers in Germany”. As a consequence, there was a risk of less growth and prosperity as well as a further increase in corporate bankruptcies.
Part-time quota is more than 40 percent
Left leader Schwerdtner said that part-time work is not a luxury problem, “but is often the only way to stay employed.” Anyone who restricts this right will push women out of work in particular, increase income losses and drive even more people into poverty in old age. During the CDU initiative, Schwerdtner spoke of “the next attack on hard-working people, especially women.”
A basic right to part-time work is currently anchored in law. This applies to people whose employment relationship has existed for more than six months and whose employer usually employs more than 15 employees.
According to the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB), the part-time rate rose to 40.1 percent in the third quarter of 2025. This is also due to an increase in employment in sectors “with a high proportion of part-time work, such as health and social services as well as education and teaching, and a decline in employment in the manufacturing sector with a high proportion of full-time work,” it said.
The IAB also pointed out that a significant proportion of employees are not working reduced hours voluntarily. “If all part-time workers could realize their wishes for more working hours, that would correspond to 1.4 million full-time jobs,” said IAB labor market expert Enzo Weber Handelsblatt.
He also sees potential among those who have not yet thought about increasing. “The expansion of childcare also increases the desired working hours. If you improve the general conditions, people will no longer be satisfied with less,” said Weber.
He explained the increase in part-time quotas in recent years by the fact that more and more women and older people are taking part in the labor market, often on a part-time basis. At the same time, full-time jobs were lost in the industry.