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Dietmar Bartsch calls on the new government to stop the "deadweight mentality in corporate management."
Photo: Florian Gaertner / photothek / IMAGO
The employment agency spent tens of billions on short-time work benefits in the corona crisis.
Many companies that have applied for financial relief have recently made high profits.
The parliamentary group leader of the Left in the Bundestag, Dietmar Bartsch, has criticized corporations that use short-time work despite high profits.
“It cannot be that corporations that distribute dividends receive state aid.
That was one of the scandals of the pandemic that must not be repeated, «said Bartsch to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) called on them to stop the "deadweight mentality in corporate management."
"Not the tax and contribution payers, but the corporations themselves should bear the costs of short-time work."
Many corporations from the auto industry, for example, have put intensive emphasis on short-time working due to the economic downturn in the corona crisis. At the moment, however, many of them are also struggling with shortages in semiconductors. Various factories have lost their rhythm due to the lack of electronic components, which is one of the reasons why there was always short-time work and even longer compulsory breaks in entire production lines.
Regardless, many of these corporations have recently made high profits and paid dividends to their shareholders. According to experts, this was possible, among other things, because of the cost-cutting measures imposed on staff in the pandemic.
The fact that corporations use short-time working and at the same time generate profits has already attracted critics in the past.
The industry points out that short-time work benefits are not state aid, but an insurance benefit from the unemployment fund.
In contrast, critics emphasize that the short-time work allowance is now also subsidized to a considerable extent by taxpayers' money.
Short-time working rules extended until the end of March 2022
In order to cushion the economic consequences of the rejection in the pandemic for employees, Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil extended the relaxed short-time working rules to the end of March 2022 at the end of November.
Without an extension, the pandemic-related special regulations would have expired at the end of the year.
According to calculations by the government, the extension is likely to cost the Federal Agency in particular dearly in 2022.
Accordingly, there is a risk of additional spending of around 400 million euros.
According to current calculations, the BA deficit expected for 2022 will rise to just under 1.3 billion euros.
The BA has already paid out around 24 billion euros in short-time work benefits in 2020 and 2021.
The BA's reserves have almost been used up, and the federal government has already had to contribute several billion.
svs / dpa