The corona pandemic has also left its mark on the labor market in the district.
For 15 years there have not been as many people without a job as there were last year.
The short-time work used by many companies prevented even worse things.
Fürstenfeldbruck
- The economy was booming, the job engine was purring.
The year 2020 started like its predecessors.
Then the virus came.
And the engine suddenly stalled.
In the end, there was an increase in unemployment of around 40 percent.
“There has never been anything like it,” says Elvira Thoma, spokeswoman for the local employment agency in Weilheim.
In 2020, an average of 4072 people in the district were unemployed.
The number of unemployed peaked in August at around 4,750 people.
At the end of the year there were 4,345. In comparison: at the end of 2019 only 2,762 men and women were looking for employment.
The unemployment rate at the end of December was 3.5 percent.
The reason why it is so low is that there were very few people without a job before the Corona crisis.
+
Last year there were more unemployed than after the financial crisis in 2009.
© Employment Agency
For the managing director of the Weilheim employment agency, Oliver Wackenhut, the fact that not many more people have lost their jobs is due to the unprecedented use of short-time work.
The tool enables employers to temporarily let their employees work less or not at all.
The employment agency pays the wages or part thereof.
In the past year, more people than ever took advantage of the short-time work allowance.
150 million for short-time work
The number of short-time workers literally exploded in March and April.
Overall, the employment agency responsible for the districts of Fürstenfeldbruck, Weilheim-Schongau, Starnberg and Landsberg had short-time working in 2020 cost almost 150 million euros.
And that shouldn't have been it yet.
Spokeswoman Elvira Thoma assumes that significantly more employees were registered for January - current figures for the month are not yet available.
Thoma expects more short-time work again, especially in the catering and retail sectors.
In the meantime, the companies should already have experience with applying for short-time work benefits.
At the beginning of the pandemic, things looked very different, reports Elvira Thoma.
“There was an incredible need for information.
Many employers were confronted with the subject of short-time work for the first time. "
The employees of the Weilheim employment agency faced the challenge of their lives because of Corona.
The flood of applications would not have been manageable with the permanent staff.
Therefore colleagues have been retrained and new employees have been hired.
Nevertheless, the workload was incredible, says Thoma.
In April and May, work was also carried out on Saturdays and Sundays.
A total of around 1300 hours of overtime was incurred.
It was a very stressful time for everyone, reports Elvira Thoma.
"But the colleagues were aware of how many livelihoods depend on their work."
