The traffic light wants to put more pressure on the unemployed. In the future, some citizens’ benefit recipients will appear at the job center every month.
In the future, citizens’ benefit recipients will be required, under certain circumstances, to report personally to the job center every month. This is provided for in a draft amendment from the traffic light government, which the federal cabinet approved on Wednesday. It states: “A monthly reporting requirement will be introduced for unemployed recipients of benefits if this is necessary for integration into the labor market.”
In the future, “increased contact density” should ensure “that existing integration opportunities are better utilized,” the draft paper, which is available to the German Press Agency, continues. The aim is to have personal interviews in the job center. In the future, it would not be enough to report to the office digitally or by telephone.
It is currently unclear whether the new reporting requirement will actually come and for whom. There is considerable resistance to the draft from the states and associations, which the Federal Council still has to approve.
As noted in an appendix to the draft, the federal states see a monthly reporting requirement as “an inappropriate interference with the local exercise of discretion and the organization of the job centers”. The German District Association and the German Association of Cities made similarly critical statements.
It is also pointed out that the Federal Employment Agency (BA) would prefer to limit the group of people affected to those who are unemployed and entitled to benefits in the first twelve months. This group is also a particular focus for the federal government because regular personal contact could potentially prevent long-term benefit receipt.
Unlike the BA, the traffic light can also imagine a reporting obligation for other benefit recipients, for example for graduates of labor market policy measures as well as integration or professional language courses. It is said that compulsory personal discussions should also be considered for young people or “people with more complex problems”. The federal government has also asked the Ministry of Justice for a legal review, the result of which is still pending, it is said.
The introduction of a monthly reporting requirement for citizens’ benefit recipients is part of the so-called growth initiative that the federal government decided on a few weeks ago. Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit emphasized on Wednesday that a greater supply of work is needed for more economic strength in the country. It is therefore “important, among other things, to get more people who still receive citizens’ benefit into work,” he explained.