Okay, let me try to clear up a few things here... :)
First of all: truth is, effective January first the 4th stage of the German "Arbeitsmarktreform" has gone into effect. Also called "Arbeitslosengeld 2" or short "Hartz 4", named after Peter Hartz, chief executive in charge of human resources at Volkswagen AG and main advisor for the government for that job market reform.
I'll skip any comments about the sheer idiocy of making a human resources manager from a stock market company responsible for *creating* jobs, when destroying them has become second nature to any large shareholder-value driven enterprise...
What the new law says is basically:
- for the first 12 months of unemployment you still receive "Arbeitslosengeld" ("unemployment money") which is an insurance payment financed by obligatory unemployment insurance fees that every employee pays. It amounts to 60% of your last income (after taxes) and is capped at a monthly income of about 5000 â¬.
Payments can be held back, if it can be proven that you neglect the attempt to get a new job. In effect, it's rarely done.
- after that you used to receive "Arbeitslosenhilfe", which was less than "Arbeitslosengeld", but still depended on your last income. This has been abolished.
- Nowadays, after 12 months you receive "Arbeitslosengeld 2", which is a pretty name for social welfare and is a fixed amount that covers only the most basic cost of living.
- This payment can be denied if you *repeatedly* refuse to take a new job that would be "reasonable" (German: "zumutbar", it doesn't translate well, perhaps "without undue hardships" would catch the meaning better). The criteria for this "Zumutbarkeit" have been *significantly* lowered, but, no, Prostitution is still not among them :P
The attempt to get the job exchange board to offer jobs at a brothel probably came from an attempt to ridicule the new policy, which is still pretty controversial around here...
Especially the pressure to accept basically *any* job, even at sub-average or below-tariff pay, and way below one's qualification could lead huge parts of the populace into social decline. But not into brothels in large numbers I guess :shuriken:
First of all: truth is, effective January first the 4th stage of the German "Arbeitsmarktreform" has gone into effect. Also called "Arbeitslosengeld 2" or short "Hartz 4", named after Peter Hartz, chief executive in charge of human resources at Volkswagen AG and main advisor for the government for that job market reform.
I'll skip any comments about the sheer idiocy of making a human resources manager from a stock market company responsible for *creating* jobs, when destroying them has become second nature to any large shareholder-value driven enterprise...
What the new law says is basically:
- for the first 12 months of unemployment you still receive "Arbeitslosengeld" ("unemployment money") which is an insurance payment financed by obligatory unemployment insurance fees that every employee pays. It amounts to 60% of your last income (after taxes) and is capped at a monthly income of about 5000 â¬.
Payments can be held back, if it can be proven that you neglect the attempt to get a new job. In effect, it's rarely done.
- after that you used to receive "Arbeitslosenhilfe", which was less than "Arbeitslosengeld", but still depended on your last income. This has been abolished.
- Nowadays, after 12 months you receive "Arbeitslosengeld 2", which is a pretty name for social welfare and is a fixed amount that covers only the most basic cost of living.
- This payment can be denied if you *repeatedly* refuse to take a new job that would be "reasonable" (German: "zumutbar", it doesn't translate well, perhaps "without undue hardships" would catch the meaning better). The criteria for this "Zumutbarkeit" have been *significantly* lowered, but, no, Prostitution is still not among them :P
The attempt to get the job exchange board to offer jobs at a brothel probably came from an attempt to ridicule the new policy, which is still pretty controversial around here...
Especially the pressure to accept basically *any* job, even at sub-average or below-tariff pay, and way below one's qualification could lead huge parts of the populace into social decline. But not into brothels in large numbers I guess :shuriken:
With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince...
With science, you can turn a frog into a Ph.D. ...
and still keep the frog you started with.