Short-time work: Corona crisis costs employment agency 52 billion euros

The Federal Employment Agency (BA) has put its previous expenses for the Corona crisis at the immense sum of around 52 billion euros.

In 2020 and 2021, 24 billion euros in short-time work benefits, 18 billion euros for social benefits from short-time work and ten billion euros for pandemic-related unemployment benefits, said BA board member Christiane Schönefeld in Berlin.

To finance the additional expenses, the federal agency's reserve of almost 26 billion euros was almost completely used up, said Schönefeld.

The federal government contributed around 24 billion euros, the rest was financed from the budget.

There is also a gap in the next budget for 2022.

The Federal Agency assumes that it will need around one billion federal grants.

The authority's budget is usually fed almost exclusively from income from contributions.

Schönefeld admitted that a further pandemic-related lockdown with then possibly a new surge of short-time work would increase the deficit.

If it continues that the pandemic is to be fought largely with the means of access restrictions for unvaccinated people, the approach could be sufficient.