Jobs Story

There's a great piece at ARD (Channel One, public TV in Germany) today.  It discusses this odd problem brewing with welfare in Germany (Hartz IV).

The numbers, as the national Employment Agency reads them....suggests that even with this fantastic job 'boom' existing (roughly 4.3-percent unemployment)....hundreds of thousands of Germans still need Hartz IV to survive.  The other bad news is that more folks than ever....are going longer on months and years without another job.

The duration statistic got brought up....555 days of unemployment was the average in 2011.  In 2017, the duration is up to 650 days.

I sat and watched a business expert talk about this long-term problem back in December.  His key point was that you had more people than ever in Germany....with NO real certificate, or skill-craft.  These were people on the borderline, and if they were ever let go....say at age thirty or forty.....they'd fall into a pit and be of zero value in the job market.  No one wants a guy with no certificate or craft.  Then he went onto suggesting that the real mission in life for the Job-Center crowd was to pick up these people....force them into a two-year or three-year program, and 'coach' them to finish up some real skill area....giving them a chance in life.

It used to be that if you had no craft or certificate....if you fell into a period of no employment....you'd drive a taxi for a while, or simply stock shelves.  But most of those jobs are now occupied by new immigrants into the country, and there is useful 'dumping-ground' to herd these folks with no skills.

The problem here is suggesting to the Job-Center folks some movement to a coaching-method, and pushing people in their 30s and 40s back into a skill deal that they must complete....would be practically impossible. 

One other mystery area, which the statistical folks always seem to avoid discussing is that the jobs business in Germany is treated as a national problem....when there are sixteen states, and each has a plus-or-minus situation.  You can find areas of Bavaria where it's two-percent unemployment, and they are begging for people to apply for jobs.  It'd make sense for the national government to go and offer moving costs to people in the high-rate areas.....getting them to move into Bavaria, but thats another likely forbidden topic to bring up.