No sustainable integration
Heil: Compulsory work for asylum seekers only to bridge time
February 29, 2024, 10:22 a.m
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While CDU politicians praise the Thuringian district administrator’s initiative, Federal Labor Minister Heil is skeptical about compulsory work for asylum seekers. It could be useful to bridge the waiting time. Real jobs for refugees would be better. The “job turbo” is supposed to bring that.
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil believes that a work requirement for asylum seekers makes sense in individual cases. “It is current law that municipalities can oblige asylum seekers who live in shared accommodation to do community service work. In individual cases it may also make sense to employ people in collective accommodation during the sometimes long waiting period,” the SPD politician told “Bild” -Newspaper. However, sustainable labor market integration will not be successful.
In the Saale-Orla district in eastern Thuringia, asylum seekers are to be required to work four hours per day. The basis is a corresponding regulation in the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, as a district spokesman said on Tuesday. The refugees are supposed to do simple jobs for 80 cents per hour. If they refuse, they face a monetary cut of up to 180 euros per month. On Wednesday, the German District Council also called for all asylum seekers to be required to work. According to association president Reinhard Sager, it’s “not so much about the added value of the work for society, but about the signal you send.”
Paragraph five of the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act states: “Those who are able to work but are not gainfully entitled to benefits and who are no longer of school age are obliged to take up a job opportunity that is made available to them.”
Heil relies on job turbo
Heil said his goal was to get people who had found protection here into long-term work subject to social security contributions. “That’s why I’m relying on the job turbo, with which we can intensify the support provided by the job centers, determine the skills and qualifications of the refugees and thus make concrete job offers.”
Refugees could also be required to work in Saxony-Anhalt in the future. Some districts were thinking about how this could be organized, said Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff on rbb24 Inforadio.
Access to the German labor market is severely restricted for newly arrived refugees. According to the current legal situation, asylum seekers are generally only allowed to work after three months – those who have to live in a reception center and do not have a minor child are only allowed to work after nine months.
Tolerated people or refugees in a reception facility with a minor child are allowed to work after six months. Asylum seekers from so-called safe countries of origin who submitted their asylum application after August 2015 generally have no access to the labor market.