Federal Employment Agency is growing – despite falling unemployment

Although unemployment in Germany has halved since 2005, the number of employees at the Federal Employment Agency (BA) has increased significantly. There are now 113,000 jobs, the authority announced to WELT AM SONNTAG. This is an increase of more than 20 percent compared to 2005. Back then, when unemployment was high, there were around 94,000.

A similar picture emerges even if one includes the factor of part-time employment: converted into full-time equivalents, the BA has 100,684 jobs today, compared to 84,517 in 2005. The agency has thus become the largest federal authority and one of the largest German employers. Most DAX companies have fewer employees in this country.

Normally, fewer unemployed would require fewer staff. But the Nuremberg authority, which is subject to the Federal Ministry of Labor, argues that the workload is increasing. She is constantly confronted with new tasks. The chairwoman of the administrative board, Christina Ramb, says: “The constant new legislative requirements are pushing the BA to its breaking point. The employees are given more and more tasks through an ambitious Federal Ministry of Labour.”

The effort involved in implementing new laws, ranging from basic income and education to the immigration of skilled workers, including IT requirements and changed instructions, ties up a lot of staff. “The general rule is: the more complex the legal basis, the more difficult it is to advise and implement it. And one must not forget that advice and support for the unemployed and employed are on average more complex today than was the case when there was mass unemployment.”

Carsten Linnemann (CDU), Vice President of the Union in the Bundestag, criticizes the job creation. "It is unacceptable that the federal agency needs more employees despite the sharp drop in unemployment and the potential for increasing efficiency through digitization," he told WELT AM SONNTAG.

The social politician Jessica Tatti from the Left Party, on the other hand, considers the increase to be appropriate: "Compared to 2005, the employment agencies today have significantly more advisory tasks, for example preventive further training advice for employees."

A BA spokeswoman illustrates the increase in personnel using the family fund. Over the past few years, this department "has been assigned many other tasks, such as the payment of child benefit supplements". 5300 employees are currently taking care of the payment.

There was also an increase because of the corona pandemic: In 2020, up to six million people were temporarily on short-time work, and 3,700 new employees were hired to provide support. The agency wants to keep it. Because a quarter of their employees are older than 55 years.

The spokeswoman said: "The BA will face a noticeable shortage of skilled workers in the coming years." Last year, refugees from Ukraine in particular caused a renewed need for personnel. Although more than 60,000 of the approximately one million refugees already have work, the majority receive basic security or citizen benefits. The multilingual care of the Ukrainians and other immigrant unemployed means additional work.

In addition, there is now citizen income: Since January, the standard rates have risen to 502 euros per month. However, many innovations that the law brings and that go hand in hand with changes in the IT infrastructure will not come until the middle of the year. According to the Ministry of Labor, additional expenditure of around 4.8 billion euros in 2023 was assumed in the draft law to introduce citizen income. The largest items are the increased standard rates at three billion euros.

The increase comes even though the state expenditures, according to the traffic light budget draft, are far from being covered by tax revenues: the federal government wants to spend a total of 445 billion euros in 2023, not including the shadow budgets. By far the largest share is accounted for by the house of Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) with 163 billion euros.

The expenses of the BA are even mostly on top of that: This is mainly financed by the contributions of employees and employers to unemployment insurance. But because the short-time allowance has used up the reserve of 26 billion euros, new billions in federal subsidies are needed.

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