Andrea Nahles takes over as CEO of the Federal Employment Agency at a time that could hardly be more turbulent.
Although the labor market once again proved to be extremely robust in July, what will happen in the coming months remains to be seen.
Gas is already scarce, the pandemic has not yet been overcome, and companies continue to complain about supply bottlenecks.
As if all that weren't enough, an unprecedented labor shortage also threatens the country's prosperity.
When the former SPD leader and federal labor minister officially starts work in her office on the first floor of the Nuremberg headquarters on Monday, she will have a lot of work to do.
She undoubtedly has the necessary experience and competence for this, and even her critics do not deny that.
The big question will be to what extent she fits into her role as head of the agency - or at least the former politician shines through.
As such, Nahles helped design the big lines: years ago, including the SPD's welfare state concept, which provides for "citizen's income" as a replacement for the Hartz IV basic security.
Under the traffic light coalition, it should now become reality.
In addition, when she was still a minister, Nahles set the goal of expanding the Federal Employment Agency into a Federal Employment and Qualification Agency that not only takes care of the unemployed, but also protects employees from losing their jobs through more further training.
Nahles will now put some of her earlier ideas into practice herself and will certainly be in frequent contact with her successor in the Ministry of Labor, her party colleague Hubertus Heil.
That is not reprehensible.
However, Nahles' task is no longer to help the SPD succeed, but to steer the labor market as well as possible through the various crises and to align the labor administration to the new challenges.
Not all of their ideas of the past and not every project of the traffic light coalition - especially in terms of further training - will be implemented.
After two years of the pandemic, the coffers are empty.