As of: February 3, 2024, 6:19 a.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) ignited the “job turbo” last fall.
(Archive image) © Kay Nietfeld/dpa
The “job turbo” launched by Labor Minister Heil was actually intended to get refugees in Germany into work more quickly.
But according to a report, this has so far been unsuccessful.
Berlin – Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) made a big announcement last year: the so-called “job turbo”, which is intended to put millions of refugees – especially Ukrainians – into work.
But a good three months after the start of the “job turbo”, according to a media report, the Federal Employment Agency (BA) can still hardly record any visible success among Ukrainians, which is a central criticism in the citizen's benefit debate.
Debate about citizens' money: “Job turbo” is stalling due to the worsening economy
The rate of departure of Ukrainian women from unemployment into employment in January was 1.2 percent on average, even lower than a year ago at 1.7 percent, reports the Düsseldorf
Rheinische Post
on Friday (February 2), citing a BA report .
The rate among Ukrainian men also fell, from 3.4 in January 2023 to 2.4 percent in January 2024. The figures come from the Federal Agency's current management report on the labor market situation for refugees.
The criticism of citizen's money for Ukrainian refugees was based on the fact that the incentives of citizen's money are too high to encourage people to work themselves.
However, it is probably less the citizen's money, but rather another reason.
The BA special representative for the “job turbo”, Daniel Terzenbach, cited the weaker economy as a main cause, which is currently making new hires more difficult.
“The overall number of unemployed increased by almost 200,000 in January compared to the previous year,” he told the
Rheinische Post
.
“It is positive to see that unemployment among the weakest group on the labor market – including refugees without fluent German skills – does not increase noticeably.”
Citizens' benefit debate: Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians need work - child care problem
Another problem is childcare: 68 percent of refugees from Ukraine are women, Terzenbach added.
“One in three Ukrainian women is a single parent, and many find it very difficult to find childcare options.
Therefore, their integration into the labor market is often more difficult than for male refugees.”
“We currently have around 2.4 million refugees of working age in Germany, around 840,000 of whom are from Ukraine,” the BA board member continued.
“A total of 750,000 refugees are already in employment subject to social security contributions, around 170,000 from Ukraine alone.
So it’s going in the right direction.”
“The job boost starts with those who don’t yet have a job,” Terzenbach continued.
“There are around 500,000 people from Ukraine and a further 600,000 from the other eight largest countries of origin for asylum.”
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“Job turbo” for refugees: start part-time language courses
To help refugees get back to work more quickly, the first part-time language courses will start in the coming weeks.
As the Federal Ministry of Labor announced on Wednesday, the new course offering makes it easier to learn German alongside your job.
The courses are now being tested with interested companies.
According to the ministry, the first regular offers will be available from the end of the first quarter.
With material from AFP