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BDA AGENDA 21/23 | TOPIC OF THE WEEK | October 5, 2023

The Federal Ministry of Labor's amended plans to shift costs to unemployment insurance also remain a rebooking and not a saving.

Anyone who shifts costs to the contribution-financed unemployment insurance scheme in order to relieve the federal budget is simply transferring their own costs to the account of the contribution community. The contribution fund is not a savings account from which the Minister of Labor can simply draw to relieve his budget.

Due to massive criticism, the Federal Ministry of Labor is now backing away from plans in the budget financing law to shift responsibility for active labor market policy for young people under the age of 25 from the job centers to the employment agencies. However, instead of looking for ways to save money in the federal budget, other tasks are simply to be financed from contribution funds in future.

According to the new proposals, the employment agencies instead of the job centers will be responsible for promoting further vocational training and supporting rehabilitants in the future. How this is to be legally justified remains unclear. But why should promoting the qualification of long-term unemployed people who have either never paid into unemployment insurance or have used up their existing unemployment insurance entitlements be a task for contribution-financed unemployment insurance? A clear stop sign must be put up here, otherwise even more tasks that are clearly to be financed from taxes will soon end up in unemployment insurance - with problematic consequences for the overall social insurance contribution.

With these plans, the Federal Ministry of Labor is also counteracting significant changes brought about by the Citizen's Income Act. Recently, the Federal Minister of Labour emphasized how important the new opportunities for job centers to provide training are because two thirds of the long-term unemployed do not have a vocational qualification. On his ministry's website, the Minister of Labor is quoted as follows: "The citizen's allowance provides reliable security for people who lose their job or experience a crisis. We are focusing on further training and qualifications so that people can successfully find their way back to work." Now the topic is to be shifted to unemployment insurance. This will make a holistic integration strategy more difficult and not easier as claimed. In fact, it is to be feared that people will be shunted back and forth between job centers and employment agencies. With these plans, the job centers will have less and less to do with their target groups, although it is precisely these groups that really need close support.