As of: February 28, 2024, 9:51 a.m
By: Helmi Krappitz
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Press
Split
All refugees must work, demands the highest district administrator, Reinhard Sager.
Experts emphasize: Refugees want to work, but are not allowed to.
Berlin – A possible obligation for asylum seekers to do community service has been an issue since last year.
In the Saale-Orla district, refugees are now expected to work four hours a day.
This should make them fit for the job market, says CDU district administrator Christian Herrgott.
And the highest district administrator, Reinhard Sager (CDU), also spoke up and called for refugees to be required to work.
“Send a signal”: Supreme district administrator calls for compulsory work for refugees
“Financial support from the state must not be unconditional.
Anyone who stays in Germany for a longer period of time has to work,” the president of the district council told
Bild
.
“Society expects that, and that’s what many refugees themselves want.” For him, compulsory work for refugees is a solution.
But the work should not be limited to charitable work.
Because cutting hedges or cleaning streets is not enough.
“It’s not so much about the added value of the work for society, but about the signal you send,” says Sager.
“But it has to be possible to do more than just sweep the park.
In the long run, this is nothing more than occupational therapy.”
Compulsory work for refugees is a “signal,” said the head of the district council, Reinhard Sager.
© picture alliance/dpa |
Kay Nietfeld
“Towards practice”: Sager calls for faster entry into the job market
Currently, the opportunities for refugees are limited and involve a lot of bureaucracy - admission to the labor market often takes months or years.
According to the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, refugees are generally prohibited from working in the first three months.
This also applies afterwards if you still live in the initial reception center.
“We must enable companies to employ asylum seekers in regular jobs sooner.
In the catering industry, for example, hard-working helpers are desperately needed,” says Sager.
The language barrier should not be seen as a counter-argument.
Refugees have to be integrated in other ways.
“Too many people come to us.
There aren't enough courses for that.
That’s why we have to move away from ideal demands and towards practice.”
Compulsory work serves the “false narrative”: refugees want to work, but are not allowed to
Experts see the basic problem as the fact that the majority of asylum seekers are not allowed to work, and demanding that they be required to work sends the wrong signal.
That's why there was also criticism of the Thuringian district administrator of the Saale-Orla district: Lord God "serves the false narrative about the work-shy refugees," said Thuringia's Integration Minister Doreen Denstädt (Greens) of the
German Press Agency
.
It is time to change something about the bureaucracy.
(hk)