Letter from the table: What should the first‑ten‑hire fix solve?

RC/TM/2026/T.6 · 6 April 2026

Dear Chair and members of the Team Council,

I am writing from Leipzig, where I have spent the past two months trying to answer a question that sounds simple: can I afford to hire one person, formally, and keep the job going if a slow month arrives?

On 2 February, I offered a part-time role to someone I wanted to work with. We agreed on 20 hours a week and gross pay of €1,450 a month. I could see the value of the work. What I could not see, at first, was the complete cost or the complete sequence of steps between saying “yes” and paying someone correctly.

On 5 February, I made a first budget. I added the gross wage, then tried to estimate the employer’s share of social-insurance contributions. My accountant’s working sheet put the recurring employer cost at roughly €1,755 a month before accident-insurance costs and other incidental expenses. That was my estimate for this job, not a universal figure: contributions depend on the circumstances, and the exact payroll calculation matters. Still, the gap between €1,450 and the amount I needed to budget was large enough to change the decision.

Then came the administrative route. I needed a Betriebsnummer from the Federal Employment Agency so that employment reports could be made. I had to collect the employee’s insurance details and set up payroll so that social-insurance contributions and wage tax would be handled through the proper channels. I also needed to establish which statutory accident-insurance institution applied to my activity. These are sensible obligations. They protect the person I am hiring, and I am not asking the Council to weaken them.

On 9 February, I submitted my Betriebsnummer application. By 13 February, I had the number, but I still had to check how the other steps fitted together. I paid €180 for advice to make sure I had not confused registration with the first payroll report. I also priced payroll software at €29 a month. None of those amounts, alone, would stop me. Together with the recurring employment cost, they made me ask whether I had enough room to hire without putting the whole business under strain.

The person started on 2 March. I kept a diary of the time spent and the amounts I had not put in my original budget. The diary is not an argument against hiring. It is evidence of how a good intention becomes a risk calculation when costs arrive before a small employer has a stable payroll.

My question about strategy

Chair, should TM-001 lead with the cost of the first ten hires, or with making the process simpler? I ask because they are related problems, but they are not the same problem. A one-stop registration route would have helped me understand what to do and when. It would not, by itself, have changed the monthly cost of employing someone. A contribution reduction would have changed that cost, but it would not have told me which institution needed which information.

I support the direction of the proposed fix: phased social contributions for a business’s first ten hires, a one-stop payroll registration route, and rules an employer can predict. My stance is amend. Please make the distinction explicit in the draft. The standard should say what changes the employer’s recurring bill, what changes the administrative steps, and what protections for the worker remain untouched.

For the cost element, I would ask the Council to test a gradual phase-in rather than a temporary discount that ends suddenly. A small employer should be able to see, before signing a contract, how the contribution cost changes as the business moves from its first hire toward its tenth. The rule should be simple enough to budget for and should not make the tenth hire a cliff edge.

For the process element, I would ask for a single registration path that tells an employer which information goes to the Federal Employment Agency, the employee’s health insurer, the tax administration through ELSTER, and the relevant accident-insurance

institution. The employer should not have to guess whether completing one step has completed another. A checklist with a clear sequence and confirmation of what remains would have saved me time and paid advice, without removing any reporting duty.

And please keep the worker visible in the design. The person I hired should receive social protection and a correctly calculated wage. The point is not to make a formal job cheaper by shifting its cost or insecurity onto them. The point is to make the first formal job possible for a small employer who is willing to take responsibility.