Facilitate access to short-time work: Nahles sees the labor market prepared for recession

Facilitate access to short-time work
Nahles sees the labor market prepared for recession

“Yes, we are threatened with a recession,” says the head of the Federal Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles. Nevertheless, the former SPD leader remains calm. The labor market is stable. In order to prevent problems in individual sectors, she wants to simplify access to short-time work benefits.

Despite fears of a recession, the CEO of the Federal Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles, sees the labor market in Germany as stable. “Yes, we are threatened with a recession,” Nahles told the editorial network Germany. “But the good news is that the labor market is robust.” However, there could be “problems in individual regions and in entire sectors,” said Nahles.

She is particularly concerned about the steel industry, for which the situation could become “very difficult”. The comparatively positive outlook for the labor market was justified by the former labor minister and SPD leader Nahles with the fact that the labor market development has now “decoupled quite a bit from economic development”. “It used to be a joint movement down and up,” said Nahles. “It’s over.” In Germany there is “a shortage of skilled workers in many areas”. If you lose your job now, you have a good chance of finding a vacancy quickly.

In view of the difficult situation in some sectors and the expected recession, Nahles had previously called for simplified access to short-time work. Although there are no more applications for this, there are significantly more requests for advice, she said last Tuesday at the German Employers’ Day in Berlin. At the moment, 2,300 employees are busy with the final audit of the payments for short-time work benefits (KUG) from the corona pandemic. “I may need that tomorrow to actively pay out KUG again,” said Nahles. “But they are not free at the moment. I would be very happy if there were a simplification.”

Nahles mentioned a “short-time work allowance” as a possible instrument – with a simplified application instead of the previous system of notification, application and final examination. Flat-rate amounts that would be paid to the companies are also conceivable. This would benefit small and medium-sized companies in particular, said Nahles.

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