Tasks of the Jobcenters: sufficient financial resources required

In the coming year, the 400 Jobcenters in Germany are facing major challenges: the lacklustre economic performance is causing unemployment to rise. People who are long-term unemployed are currently finding it particularly difficult to find a new job. In addition to this are the existing challenges in supporting refugees with their language learning, further training and integration into work.

26 Jun 2024 | Press release no.27

Sufficient financial resources are required to continue the provision of good advice to all people in receipt of Citizen’s Benefit and to integrate them into work – in terms of both the administration of the BA and measures relating to labour market policy.

The Federal Employment Agency and the German Associations of Rural Municipalities and City Councils as sponsors of the Jobcenters – i.e. both the joint institutions and the municipal Jobcenters – are therefore appealing to the federal government to provide adequate funding to the authorities responsible for ensuring a basic income in Germany. Savings in the Citizen’s Benefit can only be achieved if sufficient funding is available for the provision of practical support to recipients of Citizen’s Benefit and to match them with suitable jobs.

The current financial planning by the Federal Ministry of Finance for 2025 envisages a continuation of the levels of funding that have been awarded in recent years. However, this fails to take account of either the current economic situation or the new tasks that have been added in recent years, which means that to all intents and purposes, there will be a cut in funding for the Jobcenters. It has only been possible for the cuts in funding to the 2024 budget according to Book II of the German Social Code that have already taken place to be offset with extra funding of EUR 1.35 billion from the Budgetary Committee of the German Bundestag. If this extra funding is not continued in 2025, the negative impact on the Jobcenters would be considerable.

In particular, the lack of administrative resources at the Jobcenters means that funding earmarked helping the long-term unemployed find work would have to be reallocated to staff and rents. The current financial planning of the Federal Ministry of Finance would lead to a reduction in the funding available for administration costs, and, as a consequence, an increase in reallocations of more than 1 billion euros. These increased reallocations from the integration budget to the administration budget would invariably reduce the funding available for the initiation of new measures to help people find work. According to the initial calculations, more than one in five Jobcenters would face the challenge of not having a sufficient budget for the implementation of new measures at the start of next year.

Last year, the Jobcenters helped more than 650,000 recipients of Citizen’s Benefit find employment subject to social security contributions, more than half of whom were able to end their reliance on benefits completely as a result. This was mainly achieved through the provision of intensive regular support and advice. Reliable and adequate funding is necessary to ensure that this can continue to be provided in the future.

The Federal Employment Agency and the German Associations of Rural Municipalities and City Councils want to make their contribution to social cohesion and to provide the long-term unemployed and refugees with decent support in finding work. In return, we urge the federal government to provide the Jobcenters with sufficient funding so that they can carry out their statutory tasks effectively in these challenging times with the financial resources that are available to them.