The German government is engaged in an ongoing push to keep pensioners in work. To take this further, Berlin has recently adopted a measure known as ‘active retirement‘, which will exempt the income of working pensioners from tax up to a limit of €2,000 per month. In addition, the draft law on pension stabilisation (Rentenpaket 2025) plans to abolish the six-month waiting period between retirement and returning to work while receiving a pension. Finally, for retirees, there are plans to facilitate fixed-term contracts without objective grounds. This should help to achieve the desired objectives.
As a Berlin correspondent for the French and Swiss press since the late 1990s, I cover a wide range of economic, political and social issues, with a particular focus on the German business and labour market. My areas of interest include co-determination, digitalisation, demographics and ESG/DEI policies.