Gross annual salary and bonus month payments

Hi,

Nice forum.. I am phd student , looking out for a regular job (giving interviews).. So, I wonder if the annual salary actually includes the 13th/14th month salary or is it calculated for 12months only. Silly, still important for me, at the start of working career!!

Cheers,
Irul

you have to ask when you interview if there is a 13th or 14th months salary included in the offer. there is no guarantee you even get those anymore.

There is a difference between "Weihnachtsgeld" & "13. Gehalt".

Weihnachtsgeld is often (not always) voluntary and hence has tended to be cut back in recent years.

"13. Gehalt" is usually in your contract and if its there it cannot simply be chopped.
This all stems back to days when bumping up one months salary was a way to
avoid some of the extra social charges...

As said before, you have to ask this explicitly on your interview. The 13th month is included by most companies that pay according to the Metall IG regulations, but many international companies do not pay according to those. So you have to ask them to tell you clearly and explicitly what is included in your gross salary.

Panama, that is because only companies in the metal workers industry (like for example car manufacturers and many of their suppliers) who are also members of the employers association (Gesamtmetall i think) are actually bound by the rules of the Tarifvertrag. Other Tarifverträge apply in other industries and can have quite differing agreements. The Metal workers tarif doesn't guarantee a 13th month, by the way, it guarantees Weihnachtsgeld and Urlaubsgeld (the some of which does not necessarily add up to a month's salary).

If you talk to an employer about your gross annual salary, it will include anything at all that you get for a year...so you then have to clarify how many months, Weihnachtsgeld etc. and included by that comapny, to work out what the monthly salary is going to be.

The other way around you need to clarify too - if you ask for a monthly salary, you then have to ask how many months are paid, in order to work out what the annual salary will be.

And then there are those companies that don't pay any extra months or Weinachtsgeld...like mine.

exactly, my last company did not pay those either. each year in november the boss would dramatically say "last year was a good year. you all get <so and so> Weihnachtsgeld" so it is not a compulsory thing anymore.

when they talk about an annual gross salary, that includes everything