taz: That should be on July 1st new law on basic security come into effect. Do the employees in the job centers welcome the new regulations or not?
Jana Sieberg: The reactions are mixed. What is clear, however, is that the legal basis will change again, which will lead to additional work for employees in the job center. The law provides, among other things, for stricter obligations to cooperate and more sanctions. We will probably have to make more appointments and the administrative burden will also increase. But we can’t get more staff. We have colleagues who look after 400 to 500 customers. They can’t even manage to invite people more often.
taz: In the future it should be possible To remove 30 percent from the standard rateif a client fails to show up for an appointment twice. If he or she doesn’t come for the third time, the standard rate can be canceled completely and after another month of no-show, the job center will no longer pay rent. What consequences do you expect?
Sieberg: This means additional administrative work for our work. We know these complete deletions from before, among those under 25. If they didn’t show up at the job center several times and didn’t cooperate, everything was canceled, including the rent. In the end, some people ended up homeless.
taz: Supporters of the new law say that the stricter sanctions could possibly have a preventive effect, meaning that some people will then take up work because they fear cuts.
Sieberg: It can be. However, I doubt whether this pressure will lead to long-term work. There is a danger that the sanctions will affect the wrong people. Anyone who doesn’t want to accept a job today doesn’t just stand up and say to the clerk in the job center who pointed them to temporary employment job advertisements: “I refuse to take up this job!” This refusal is unlikely to occur. If you don’t want to, you can escape in other ways. But those who cannot do so could face further difficulties as a result of the sanctions.
taz: On social networks you can read tips on how to present yourself unfavorably if you don’t want a job – for example by mentioning your own depression or sick leave in the interview. This is not a demonstrable refusal to work on the part of the applicant.
Sieberg: If someone doesn’t want to, there are many ways to avoid it, and the new law with its stricter rules won’t change that. But the reality in the job centers is completely different than what is often portrayed in politics. Most of the customers there have several barriers to placement: they have little or no qualifications, have health restrictions, do not speak German well enough, and are older. I would say that there is a special need for action given the large number of unemployed people in the job centers. That’s what it’s all about before it comes to integration into work. However, better integration work and thus placement in work can only work if the job centers have sufficient staff and appropriate financial resources.
taz: It sounds as if the clerks also have a social task…
Sieberg: We are also social workers. There are many who need our support and accept it, and they are grateful when they find an employer who gives them a chance. Because this is also part of the truth: There must also be the right job market.
taz: Will the employees in the job centers make home visits before cutting off benefits? To see if someone might be in too poor a condition or too mentally ill to respond to an invitation?
Sieberg: To date, no staff has been provided for home visits in such cases of missed appointments. There are job centers that have a social service that could do that. But as a rule there is no capacity for this.
taz: The law states that the job centers should be considerate when people are mentally ill. How should this be implemented?
Sieberg: There is training on the topic of mental illnesses, but here too the employees usually have far too many customers to be able to respond to them individually. Colleagues then tend to rely on medical certificates that document mental illness.
taz: Are there actually clerks who approve of stricter sanctions because they are annoyed by unwilling clients?
Sieberg: Yes, there are those too. We certainly had customers in the community benefit who said to the clerk in their face: “You can’t do anything to me!” Some clerks have experienced disappointment because the attitude towards citizens’ money was taken advantage of by some customers. Such negative examples stick in the mind more than the positive cases, even though they are in the minority.