Germany: remote working requirement to be lifted from 1 July

In April the German government created a new measure – a so-called emergency brake (Bundesnotbremse) – that obliged all the Länder to adopt a certain number of protective measures to deal with the pandemic, when the rate of infections exceeded 100 new cases per 100,000 people in previous 7 days. The measure, which also concerns companies, is to remain in place until the end of June, as planned. The German Chancellery confirmed that the measure would indeed be lifted given the sharp decline in the rate of infections. For the world of work, the most significant change is the end of the requirement to keep employees working from home, from 1 July. Will that entail a return en masse to the office? The situation remains unclear. The country’s ministry of labour has made it known that the hygiene and social distancing rules currently in force at companies will be maintained, which will make it more difficult for staff to operate in offices at 100% capacity. Meanwhile the obligation to test employees present twice a week is also retained. In view of the spread of the Delta variant and the high risk of infection in enclosed spaces, the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) criticised the move to lift the remote working requirement. Hubertus Heil, the German minister of labour, said that a mix of remote and in-office working would soon be the new normal. “For this, we need a law to regulate it,” he said, indicating that the introduction of a right to work remotely, which was previously rejected by German employers and conservatives, is one of the key battles of the next legislature.