One third of employees in Germany consider their salaries to be unfair. The percentage of dissatisfied employees is particularly high among people of the middle and higher-income segments. People in the west of Germany have become more dissatisfied recently than employees in the east. However, employees in the east are still by far more dissatisfied with their salaries than those in the west. These are the findings of a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin.
The percentage of those employees who feel that they are not duly paid for their work increased from 26% in 2005 to 35% in 2007. Dissatisfaction is still highest among low-income employees, but over the past two years middle-income employees have become disproportionally dissatisfied, says Mr. Jürgen Schupp, one of the organizers of the study. Among those with a monthly gross salary over 2000 Euros the percentage of those not satisfied almost doubled.
In the old Federal Länder dissatisfaction increased more (+9%) than in the new Laender (+5%). Nevertheless, overall dissatisfaction with one´s salary is still significantly higher in the east of Germany (48%) than in the west (32%).
Dissatisfaction increased more among men than among women.
Those employees who think that they are not properly remunerated were on average three days more off sick in the year 2006 than other employees.
Detailed findings of the study are available in the weekly report of the DIW Berlin which is available for free-of-charge download. 