Labor market defies corona crisis

Created: 01/18/2022 07:21

By: Stefanie Zipfer

 In contrast to other districts in Germany, the number of Hartz IV recipients in the district of Dachau has risen only moderately.

© Ralf Hirschberger

Despite the corona crisis, there is still full employment in Dachau.

In contrast to other districts in Germany, the number of Hartz IV recipients has increased only moderately.

However, there are clear losers in the crisis: women.

District – Since March 2006, the district of Dachau has only gone uphill – or, if you want to be more precise, only downhill: The number of so-called need-based communities who receive unemployment benefit II – Hartz IV for short – has been falling continuously since then. The best value was January 2020, when the Dachau job center registered only 1139 benefit communities. The unemployment rate at that time fluctuated between 1.7 and 1.8 percent. "It was crazy," says job center boss Peter Schadl about this time. "It was already clear to us back then that it really couldn't get any better."

And indeed, the corona crisis came, and even the robust Dachau labor market suddenly weakened.

The unemployment rate reached a corona high of 2.9 percent in May 2020; it is currently 2.1 percent.

But Schadl also says: "It's all whining at a high level.

Statistically, any rate below 3 percent counts as full employment.”

The companies were helped above all by the generously paid short-time work allowance from the federal government.

"In this way, layoffs and plant closures could be largely prevented," explains Schadl.

So there were no corona victims in Dachau? "Yes," admits the labor market expert. Those few who lost their job due to Corona or who were already unemployed before Corona found it harder than before: “The companies may have exhibited almost nobody. But they didn’t hire anyone either.” And it was precisely the low level of security for the so-called mini-jobbers – mostly carried out by women – that meant that the number of people in need of unemployment benefit II skyrocketed. In September 2019 there were still 1168 communities of need in the Dachau district who received Hartz IV, a year later there were 1373. Among them are 248 people who have been unemployed for more than a year. "That may be an incredibly low number in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but for us it's quite high,"so Schadl.

In the early days of the pandemic, his “team couldn’t look left and right”, there were suddenly so many applications for Hartz IV in Dachau. The generous regulations of the Federal Ministry of Labor that, for example, the so-called upper rent limits were abolished and that the asset test could also be handled less strictly, prevented the job center from going under in the work; Secondly, the regulations from Hubertus Heil's ministry ensured that the applications were answered promptly and that "hardly anyone fell through the social safety net," says Schadl.

Schadl explains that the current number of around 1,400 Hartz IV recipients is still top in Upper Bavaria comparison: “The district of Dachau is incredibly broad. We are not one-sidedly dependent on the airport, the car industry or tourism.” According to Schadl, many of his customers “will therefore continue to have opportunities”. In his opinion, by 2023 at the latest, the number of unemployed and those receiving social assistance will “reach a similar level” as in 2019.

For the district of Dachau, the small Corona dent in the labor market means increased spending. The costs for unemployment benefit II are divided between the federal government and the district as follows: while the former pays for the money to live on as well as health and nursing care insurance, the district takes on the costs for housing. Expressed in figures, this means that while the district office had to transfer a total of 5.95 million euros in housing costs in 2020, it was slightly more in 2021, namely 6.78 million euros. Nevertheless, the local job market is also considered stable in the district office, so the additional expenses for 2021 are only “minor changes”, according to spokeswoman Sina Török.

It is due to the new federal government that the district office still expects increasing expenditure in the area of ​​Hartz IV in the long term. She is planning to permanently abolish the upper rent limits for the Hartz IV rates that have been omitted due to the corona crisis. This means that the district will not only assume the so-called reasonable costs of accommodation, as it did before Corona, but the actual ones. In the district of Dachau, with its high real estate prices, this should lead to noticeable additional costs.

According to Schadl, what unfortunately also exists in the district of Dachau, despite the good job market, is “the clientele that simply doesn’t want to work”.

And just like with the upper rent limits and the permitted assets, the state had recently held back when it came to sanctioning those unwilling to work.

"If someone is not vaccinated or deliberately does not want to be vaccinated, then we had little opportunity to accommodate them or summon them to us." But the job center boss is now hoping to get this "clientele" moving again the corresponding funds from Berlin.

Specifically: "We need compulsory vaccination."