The unemployment rate there stood at 8.5% in September, compared with 6.4% across the Rhine, and the employment rate is lower. The labor force continues to grow and is expected to keep rising until the end of the 2030s. Since its creation in 2015, the German minimum wage has been raised very substantially, to the point of clearly exceeding the French minimum wage, without unemployment increasing significantly.
In 2026, the minimum wage across the Rhine reaches 2,343 euros gross per month, compared with 1,867 euros in France. It is set to rise further to 14.60 euros an hour on January 1, an increase of 13.9% in two years.
This contrast is fueling the French debate over the scale of a boost to the minimum wage, while Paris has planned only a limited increase.
Faced with significant recruitment difficulties, German companies absorbed the shock by reducing their margins and raising their prices.
This resilience is partly explained by demographics. The working-age population tends to shrink, exposing employers to severe recruitment pressures.
The German case is not, however, fully transferable to France.
Even with a high net migration balance, the labor force is expected to fall by about 3.2 million people by the mid-2030s, according to Destatis forecasts. More than one million jobs were vacant in early 2026, according to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). According to the latest report of the Minimum Wage Commission, this increase has not translated into a significant rise in unemployment, even though growth has been very weak since 2019.