Germany / As many as 3 million people earn less than €6 ($7.90) per hour

As many as 3 million people in Europe’s top economy earn less than €6 ($7.90) per hour, meaning Germany has one of the biggest shares of low-wage jobs in Europe, a fact that Merkel’s critics have jumped on in the campaign.

“We’ve become a country of low wages,” sighed charity worker Renate Stark, who every day confronts the struggle of workers paid too little to make ends meet, despite Germany’s booming economy.

From pizza deliverers earning an hourly €6, to young journalists on less than €750 a month, the 55-year-old social assistant for the Catholic Caritas organization in Berlin can reel off many such examples.

One man Stark helps has been working as a packer at an online sales company in the German capital for four years on €3.50 an hour and can’t find another job despite dozens of applications.

Like hundreds of others, Stark said, he mostly scrapes by thanks to certain welfare benefits, but when that is not enough, “when the washing machine breaks down or an electricity bill arrives unexpectedly,” he turns to charities.

“I experience it here daily,” she said. “I began this job 21 years ago and it wasn’t like that. The situation has become really serious in the past five or six years. It’s very clear.”

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Wage gap takes spotlight in German elections | The Japan Times.