Unemployed people in Germany who start a full-time business can apply for the Gründungszuschuss, a start-up grant paid for up to 15 months. Under Section 93 of the Third Book of the Social Code, they must present a statement from an expert body on the Tragfähigkeit, the viability, of the business. A chamber of commerce, a chamber of crafts or a tax adviser can give it. The founder hands the expert body a set of documents. The Federal Employment Agency’s model letter lists them: a business plan, a plan of capital needs and financing, a forecast of sales and profitability, a CV and proof of qualifications. Whether the grant is paid is at the agency’s discretion.
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Work Preparation
Arbeitsvorbereitung, work preparation, is a fixed term in German manufacturing and construction. In construction, it is the planning stage that coordinates resources, tasks and work steps, so that the work on site runs efficiently and without disruption. The construction reference work Bauprofessor calls careful work preparation decisive for the success of a building project. It warns that leaving it out can cost five percent or more of the result on a site. In industry, Arbeitsvorbereiter, work preparer, is a job title of its own. One way into the job is a twelve-week course to become a REFA technician.
Planned Cost Accounting
German cost accounting has a method named for the plan: Grenzplankostenrechnung, flexible marginal planned-cost accounting. It was developed in the late 1940s and the 1950s by the automotive engineer Hans Georg Plaut and the academic Wolfgang Kilger. Plaut published two articles on it in 1953 in the Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft. As the name says, the method is built on planned costs. It is still taught at universities in the German-speaking countries and has been described as the standard for cost accounting in Germany.
Discounts at the Car Dealer
Buying a new car is one place where bargaining is normal. In a covert study published in April 2026, the automobile club ADAC sent test buyers to car dealers in different regions. For each of 14 cars they held eight sales talks. In more than three quarters of the talks, the first offer already included a discount. With the reductions given after the buyer asked, almost 90 percent of the talks ended with some kind of lower price. The largest reductions came in the first offer or after the first request. A second or third request rarely brought more.
Most of the discount was already in the first offer. Bargaining added little.
When the Customer Asks for a Discount
Viele Kunden fragen bei einem Beratungsgespräch auch nach einem Rabatt. Many customers ask for a discount during the first consultation. The Deutsche Handwerks Zeitung, the newspaper of the German skilled trades, wrote this in August 2024. It went on: if craftsmen calculate correctly, a discount is often hardly possible. Its advice is to offer a reduction only with cheaper material or with fewer details. The customer then sees that a lower price means lower quality. The paper expects that he will usually wave the idea away and pay the quoted price. Its rule is short. A customer who wants a discount must give something for it.
No Price Talks After the Bids Are Opened
When a German public body builds a school or a road, it awards the work under the VOB/A, the standard award rules for construction. Section 15 covers the time between the opening of the bids and the award. The client may ask a bidder only for explanations, for example about whether his price is reasonable. Then the rule is plain: Verhandlungen, besonders über Änderung der Angebote oder Preise, sind unstatthaft. Negotiations, especially about changing the bids or the prices, are not permitted. The only exception covers alternative bids and bids based on a performance program. There, small technical changes may have to be agreed, and the price may change with them.
No Way Back From a Termination Agreement
A German employment relationship can end by mutual agreement, in an Aufhebungsvertrag. Once it is signed, it cannot simply be withdrawn. On 7 February 2019, the Federal Labor Court decided the case of a cleaner who had signed such an agreement in her own apartment. She said that she had been ill that day. The court held that the consumer right of withdrawal does not apply to these agreements, even when they are signed at home. It named one limit, the Gebot fairen Verhandelns, the requirement of fair negotiation. A side breaks it when it creates psychological pressure that makes a free and considered decision much harder, for example by deliberately exploiting an illness. On 24 February 2022, the same court set the boundary of that limit. An employer may offer the agreement for immediate signature and refuse time to think. The employee can always say no.
Peace During, Terms After
While a German collective wage agreement is in force, unions and employers may not strike or lock out over the matters it settles. This Friedenspflicht, the duty to keep the peace, is part of every such agreement, whether it is written down or not. It ends with the agreed term. In the metal and electrical industry, it ended at the end of October 2024. The Hessian broadcaster reported: Die Friedenspflicht endete nach Mitternacht. The peace duty ended after midnight. At several plants in Hesse, workers began warning strikes shortly after midnight. The old terms did not end with the old agreement. The Collective Agreements Act says: Nach Ablauf des Tarifvertrags gelten seine Rechtsnormen weiter, bis sie durch eine andere Abmachung ersetzt werden. After a collective agreement expires, its rules continue to apply until another agreement replaces them.
The Time Study
On 30 September 1924, the Reichsausschuß für Arbeitszeitermittlung, the Reich Committee for Determining Working Time, was founded. It is known by its initials, REFA. Its early task was to measure working time for cost calculations and for piece-rate work. REFA trained Zeitnehmer, time takers. By 1929 REFA had trained 1,650 time takers, and by 1943 about 12,000. The association still exists and still trains people in work-time study.
What a Craftsman’s Hour Costs
In 2023 the Chamber of Crafts in Mannheim published a flyer on what a craftsman’s hour costs. Its business adviser Rolf Koch encouraged craftsmen to hand it to their customers. The flyer takes apart the hourly rate of a metalworking shop. The journeyman’s gross wage is 21.50 euros. Then come social costs set by law and by collective agreement, operating overhead, the owner’s own pay, and a surcharge of 3.59 euros for the owner’s risk and profit. With 19 percent VAT, the hour costs 76.58 euros. The flyer calls this the lower price limit. Koch’s comment was blunt: Darunter kann der Betrieb nicht, sonst muss der Chef weniger essen. The shop cannot go below this, or the boss has to eat less.