On 23 March, Andrea Nahles, Germany’s Minister for Social Affairs and Labor announced that this year she wanted to create 100,000 ‘jobs for a euro’ for refugees whose asylum requests are being processed. The minister sees a program such as this as relevant because many refugees have been living in Germany now for a long time without any work at all. The main thrusts of the program have been signed off by the Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble. The ‘jobs for a euro’ program had originally been set up for the long term unemployed. Employers and economists alike are critical of the initiative, believing that refugees are more in need of training than ‘being occupied’.
An instrument developed for the long term unemployed. This instrument was conceived of during former Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder’s vast labor market reforms. ‘Jobs for a euro’ were aimed to maintain the long-term unemployed’s capacity for work as well as facilitating their reintegration into the labor market. The program helps people get used to working fixed hours. State financed, the jobs themselves have a ‘public interest’ element and are not meant to put the workers into competition...
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