Your employ­ment and labor law lawyer

The law firm Gräf & Cen­torbi offers expe­ri­enced legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in a broad range of employment-​​related mat­ters. With more than two decades of expe­ri­ence in employ­ment and labor law, our lawyers are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing our clients (both employ­ers and employ­ees) with high-​​quality per­son­al­ized ser­vice and achiev­ing the best pos­si­ble results.

Rep­re­sent­ing employ­ers and employ­ees we gained a deeper under­stand­ing of the needs and require­ments of both par­ties. Thus we inform our clients about their rights and oblig­a­tions within an employ­ment rela­tion­ship and pro­vide opti­mal solu­tions and results.

Whether you need gen­eral advice regard­ing an employ­ment mat­ter, are lit­i­gat­ing a case against an employer or are nego­ti­at­ing an employ­ment agree­ment, our lawyers are here to help you make the most out of your case. The Ger­man leg­is­la­tor dif­fer­en­ti­ates between two types of labor law: pri­vate employ­ment law and col­lec­tive employ­ment law.

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Pri­vate employ­ment law for sin­gle per­sons

Pri­vate employ­ment law includes the reg­u­la­tions within a legal rela­tion­ship between sin­gle employ­ers and employ­ees. Our spe­cial­ist lawyer for labor law will inform you on how this rela­tion­ship is going to take place and which ques­tions might occur.

Col­lec­tive employ­ment law for trade unions and staff asso­ci­a­tions

Col­lec­tive employ­ment law reg­u­lates the rela­tion between rep­re­sen­ta­tives of employ­ees’ inter­ests (trade unions, works coun­cil) and employ­ers as well as employer orga­ni­za­tions. These reg­u­la­tions form the basis for an employ­ment con­tract which our lawyer spe­cial­ized on labor law will care­fully check for you.

Global labor rela­tions – for­eign employer and ger­man employee

Hir­ing an employee from a for­eign coun­try espe­cially from Ger­many, com­ply­ing with local labor, tax, social secu­rity, health insur­ance and leg­is­la­tion can be risky with­out a pro­fes­sional han­dling. Let us help you make the best out of your employ­ment rela­tion­ship and secure your busi­ness.
These steps are nec­es­sary for a for­eign com­pany in order to hire a Ger­man employee:

Employ­ers who are employ­ing an employee require a com­pany num­ber to reg­is­ter with the social secu­rity author­i­ties and to pay the social secu­rity con­tri­bu­tions. The com­pany num­ber is assigned on appli­ca­tion by the Com­pany Num­ber Ser­vice of the Fed­eral Employ­ment Agency in Saar­brücken. After approx. three work­ing days the com­pany num­ber that has been newly assigned will also be known to the Ger­man social insur­ance agen­cies. We there­fore rec­om­mend to wait three days before the first reg­is­tra­tion is trans­mit­ted to the social secu­rity author­i­ties.

Upon the reg­is­tra­tion with the social insur­ance author­i­ties, the employer informs the health insur­ance fund about the start of employ­ment and trans­mits cer­tain infor­ma­tion on the employed per­son and the employ­ment. As a com­pany you need to ask your employee which Ger­man pen­sion insur­ance fund he has selected.
The employee’s per­sonal infor­ma­tion should be taken from offi­cial doc­u­ments of the employee, such as the social secu­rity num­ber from the social secu­rity card. If the employee does not yet have a social secu­rity num­ber, due to the fact he has never been employed, for instance, the reg­is­tra­tion requires more of his per­sonal details about him (place of birth, name at birth and date of birth).
Reg­is­tra­tions sent to the social secu­rity author­i­ties are per­formed by means of elec­tronic data trans­fer.

The employer’s duties include deter­min­ing the wage that is sub­ject to social secu­rity con­tri­bu­tions that must be paid for each employee and to cal­cu­late the con­tri­bu­tions from this.

By means of the state­ment of con­tri­bu­tion the employer pro­vides notice before the pay­ment date of the sum total of deduc­tions, which he will pay in total for all employ­ees for one month. The infor­ma­tion is there­fore not per­sonal, but recorded as a total amount. Here the sum of the con­tri­bu­tions con­sists of con­tri­bu­tions towards health and nurs­ing care insur­ance, pen­sion and unem­ploy­ment insur­ance as well as the employer’s insur­ance and insol­vency fund con­tri­bu­tions.
The state­ment of con­tri­bu­tions must – in the same way as the noti­fi­ca­tions sent to the social secu­rity author­i­ties – be trans­mit­ted by means of approved system-​​tested pro­grammes or by means of a computer-​​generated com­ple­tion aid.

The con­tri­bu­tions must have been received by the Bun­desknapp­schaft insur­ance fund by the due date at the lat­est.
The eas­i­est and most con­ve­nient way of pay­ing the con­tri­bu­tion is by pro­vid­ing the Bun­desknap­schaft insur­ance fund with a SEPA direct debit man­date. This thus guar­an­tees the con­tri­bu­tions are deb­ited on time. In addi­tion, there is the pos­si­bil­ity to trans­fer con­tri­bu­tions to an account.
Bank trans­fers from abroad may take some time. Com­pa­nies need to take account of this when per­form­ing bank trans­fers. If the pay­ment is not made on time penalty charges will be raised.

For each employee who is liable for com­pul­sory insur­ance on 31 Decem­ber of each year, an annual return must be pro­duced with the first fol­low­ing wage and pay­roll account­ing state­ment, at the lat­est by 15 Feb­ru­ary of the fol­low­ing year.
By means of the annual return, the employer informs the health insur­ance fund of the employee’s annual earn­ings, which were used to cal­cu­late the con­tri­bu­tion. This value is for­warded by the health insur­ance com­pany to the pen­sion insur­ance insti­tu­tion respon­si­ble for the employee and will later be used as a basis for the cal­cu­la­tion of the pen­sion.

Many of our lawyers have years of expe­ri­ence help­ing foreign-​​based cor­po­ra­tions address labor and employ­ment chal­lenges. Thus for exam­ple we draft employ­ment agree­ments and pro­vide advice regard­ing employ­ment rela­tion­ship.

Our lawyer specialized on labor law

Dino Kolar

Lawyer und Spe­cial­ist lawyer
06131 – 950090
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