German employment contracts will soon be permitted in digital form. Corresponding documents no longer have to be handed out to employees on paper. The traffic light coalition has agreed on this. The government draft for the Bureaucracy Relief Act IV is being adjusted.
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Specifically, the Evidence Act should no longer require written form, but only text form. Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) is pleased that “employees and employers will benefit” from the change. “In the future, employment contracts can be concluded completely easily and digitally, for example by email.”
Irene Mihalic, parliamentary director of the Greens, sees a “big step towards simplification for companies and employees”. Many start-ups in particular often already work completely digitally, which could also apply to the human resources department in the future. Katja Mast (SPD) emphasizes: “The solution found ensures that documents that can be used as evidence can be requested in the event of a dispute.”
Millions of employment contracts per year
With the amendment, the government is meeting demands from business circles. Verena Pausder, CEO of the startup association, celebrates the agreement as a “very good sign for digitalization” and a “future-oriented step towards more efficient digital workflows.” In the past five years, around eleven million employment contracts have been concluded in Germany each year, estimates the German Economic Institute.
The IT association Bitkom is correspondingly relieved that “the government corrected a serious mistake at the last minute”. The employees were also spared unnecessary effort and costs. However, the requirement to use paper and hand signatures remains “one of the biggest obstacles to consistent digitalization in too many places” in business and administration. The traffic light coalition should therefore finally tackle the general clause regarding written form requirements announced in its coalition agreement. With the Bureaucracy Relief Act that has been debated so far, the written form is only intended to be retained as a replacement for the electronic version. This applies, for example, to the termination of an employment relationship or rental agreement.
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