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0 pointskjkjadksj2y ago0 comments

Are unemployment benefits better in germany? If they are you’d expect it to be higher than the US, as in the US workers might run out of the social support network sooner and be forced to take any job just to eat and shelter.

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erinnh2y ago· 2 in thread

They are.

What I was taught in macroeconomics in this topic (excuse me if I get something wrong, it’s been a few years)

In general it’s very expected unemployment to „generally“ be higher in Germany.

Because it’s harder to fire people here, people also get hired somewhat slower. However in the flip side it’s also expected that during harsh economic times people will be fired less because of how „hard“ it is to hire people.

So it’s a trade-off.

BonoboIO2y ago

Also there programs like „Kurzarbeit“ rough translation would be „Shortened Work“.

Where you get 60%-85% of your salary (after tax) without work or with way less ours, if the employer has no work/less work (like covid period). It’s payed mostly by the state. Up to 12 month. Regulations are strict.

Prevents layoffs and helps starting the upturn of production like automobile industry, where it takes months or half a year to start ramping up production.

carstenhag2y ago

Kurzarbeit is funded by unemployment insurance, which you pay when you have a job. It is correct though that during covid, the funds ran a bit empty and the government had to fill it up again with unrelated tax money (afaik)

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Fischgericht2y ago

I guess unemployment benefits are better in pretty much every other western country compared to the US, so: Yes.

If you become unemployed, depending on your age, and how long you have worked etc, you get between 12 and 24 months about 60% of your previous salary before dropping into social security.

There are various programs to get people back into jobs depending on what caused their unemployment - help on re-settling in case the loss of job being caused by your profession no longer being asked for in the region you live in, training to move to a different profession, help if your job loss is related to health issues (for example burn-out).

The system is optimized into trying to find out the cause of job losses, and work to counter that.

The 5% unemployed are mostly cases which are impossible to solve due to someone being too old to be re-trained and/or not willing or being able to move to where the jobs are.

Right now the job market in Germany is mostly defined by a shortage of labor in various areas, which is why there is a strong desire to make sure that immigrants are allowed to enter the work-force quicker. For example trains no longer run in any way reliably in Germany due to a massive shortage on workers in that industry.

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