The Federal Employment Agency will soon have a need for a job placement itself: In April the chief post there will become vacant.

Detlef Scheele, 64 years old, is leaving office.

The Nuremberg authorities will hardly look at their own customer list, the task is highly political - next year more than ever before: Then the basic security needs to be converted, popularly known as "Hartz IV".

In the future, the traffic light parties have decided in their coalition agreement that it will become a “citizen's money”.

And now a person is under discussion for this task who has long been contested with the red-green labor market reform: Former SPD chairman Andrea Nahles, who threw in the towel in April 2019.

Corinna Budras

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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The news was made public over the weekend by “Bild am Sonntag”. Neither the SPD nor the Federal Ministry of Labor wanted to confirm the personnel on Sunday, and Nahles himself did not comment. In this way, the former Federal Minister of Labor could become von Scheele's former boss as his successor. However, this personnel is not a sure-fire success: the administrative council of the federal agency elects the new manager, the federal cabinet has to approve it. The chairman of the board of directors is Anja Piel, member of the board of directors of the German Federation of Trade Unions. Nahles is currently President of the Federal Agency for Post and Telecommunications, a sub-authority of the Ministry of Finance, which the designated SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz has headed up to now. Nahles has already been able to gain insights into day-to-day life at the authorities,However, experience from the private sector, as critics criticize, is not.

Whoever will head the BA in the future must in any case fill the conversion of the state support to a "citizen's money" with life, which is praised above all by the FDP. Christian Lindner named it on Sunday, along with improvements in the realization of educational opportunities, as the first of five core projects in the coalition agreement. The citizens' money shows the renewal of the "promise of promotion" and at the same time the modernization of the welfare state. It enables "life-course sovereignty". No more stroke of fate should lead to the social impasse, warned the FDP boss. Critics such as Ulrich Schneider, General Manager of the Paritätischer Gesamtverband, accuse the traffic light parties of “fraudulent labeling” because the reform, apart from a new name, brings hardly any substantial improvements for the unemployed.

Anger was initially caused by the fact that the prospective coalition partners had not yet said anything in their agreement about the amount of the new citizens' money. Instead of the usual annual adjustments, social associations have long been demanding a significant increase in the previous standard rate from 446 euros to more than 600 euros per month in order to enable the around 3.8 million recipients of unemployment benefit II to lead a decent life. A significant increase in the amount is necessary, particularly due to the rising inflation of five percent recently. In addition to the monthly fixed rate, however, the state also pays the rent and heating costs to an “appropriate extent”.

The traffic light has also planned significant easing in the first two years of the basic security. So the assets should remain untouched during this time. So far, Hartz IV recipients had to have their assets credited to their state support up to a maximum allowance of around 10,000 euros. Due to the Corona crisis, crediting is currently postponed for six months. The parties remain vague about the controversial sanctions: Basically, they want to stick to them. In which form? Open minded.

There will be relief for recipients of citizen benefits both in terms of further training and opportunities for additional income.

After that, they no longer have to accept a job offer at any cost, but can instead choose a further training and qualification offer for which a bonus can also be paid in the future.

Franziska Brandmann, chairwoman of the Young Liberals, highlighted the expanded opportunities for additional income for schoolchildren and students at the FDP party congress on Sunday.

It is a sign of “fairness in terms of performance” that their jobs no longer reduce the Hartz IV rule set of their parents.