Transfer short-time work allowance

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The transfer short-time work allowance is an instrument of labor market policy in Germany, which is defined in Section 111 SGB ​​III (until March 31, 2012: Section 216b SGB III old version).

Transfer short-time work allowance is aimed at avoiding layoffs of employees and the receipt of unemployment benefits , as well as improving placement prospects while working in a transfer company . In this respect, it serves as a social cushion for corporate restructuring programs. The aim is, if possible, the transfer from work to work ("job to job"). The employees affected by short-time work receive the transfer short-time work allowance as a compensation payment. The claimants are the employees themselves, but the application for the transfer short-time work allowance must be submitted by the employer or the works council in accordance with Section 323 (2) SGB III. The service is provided by the Federal Employment Agency .

Unlike conventional short-time compensation must be an employee "of a permanent be affected unavoidable loss of working with rent loss" - for example in the insolvency of the employer . It is also necessary that the employer and the works council seek advice from the Federal Employment Agency before agreeing on transfer measures. Advance advice is a mandatory requirement.

The transfer short-time work allowance is paid for a maximum period of 12 months. During the receipt of transfer short-time work allowance, the employer must make recommendations to the employee regarding a new job .

Every month in Germany around 10,000 and 35,000 employees receive transfer short-time work benefits.

Development history

1989

In order to avert mass layoffs in coal mining and in the iron and steel industry, the so-called structural short-time work allowance was introduced on January 1, 1989 (Section 63 (4) of the Employment Promotion Act).

Unlike the regular, so-called “cyclical” short-time work allowance, structural short-time work allowance is also paid if the absence from work is permanent and the employees' jobs and the company the trained workers are not retained. The prerequisite for the performance is that the company enables the employees grouped in a company unit to gain professional qualifications.

With the structural short-time work allowance, the employees of a company receive a wage replacement benefit for the time in which they are released from work and are not entitled to wages.

The regulation is viewed critically because it is limited to certain sectors of the economy, namely those whose situation has deteriorated structurally. The existence of this eligibility requirement is also difficult to assess.

1990

From 1990 to 1992, up to two million people per month (April 1991) in the accession area received short-time work benefits, most of them structural short-time work benefits. The instrument thus passes a test that no one could have thought of when it was introduced at the beginning of 1989. The funding makes a contribution to maintaining social peace while restoring the unity of Germany. Many employees of ailing state-owned companies in the accession area are spared having to go to the employment office immediately, and many find new jobs during the short-time work.

1998

On January 1, 1998, the Third Book of the Social Code (SGB III) came into effect and replaced the Employment Promotion Act from 1969. The regulation on the structural short-time work allowance is adopted as Section 175 in SGB III. In the justification for the draft law, the federal government refers to positive experiences with the use of the previous service, which has fulfilled an important task in avoiding mass layoffs.

With the transfer of the funding instrument to SGB III, a weak point will be eliminated: the restriction to certain economic sectors will be lifted. Now all companies can receive structural short-time working allowance if structural changes lead to the restriction or closure of parts of the company and significant personnel adjustment measures.

The structural short-time work allowance is supplemented with a new service: subsidies for social plan measures (§§ 254 ff. SGB III). Companies in which a social plan is agreed in the event of planned changes in operations with significant disadvantages for the workforce can then receive subsidies for the social plan if the funds of the social plan are used effectively. This is intended to create incentives to include measures to avoid unemployment in social plans instead of severance payments. Eligible are e.g. B. Further training measures to prepare employees for jobs with good employment prospects. Subsidies for social plan measures are aimed at the time before the end of the employment relationship in which the employees are still in the company. The funding is intended to support the transfer of employees who are to be laid off to a new company and thus avoid unemployment as much as possible.

From September 1998 to August 2000, the Labor and Technology Institute at the North Rhine-Westphalia Science Center carried out accompanying research on social plan grants on behalf of the Institute for Employment Research of the Federal Employment Agency and compared the funding with corresponding instruments in Austria and France. The study provides the following information, which will be taken into account in a later change in the law:

"The solution of transfer management from the quasi-private sphere of the individual company and social plan or 'its' transfer company is the prerequisite for professionalization, for the creation of transparency and the development of quality criteria with regard to the funding measures."

The investigation comes to the following conclusion:

"In fact, it is [...] that the participants in transfer measures receive more intensive and, above all, faster support than they would have expected if they just reported to the employment office. One cannot, on the one hand, mobilize company funds for employment promotion in personnel adjustments and, on the other hand, not accept that these funds then also benefit those affected more or less directly. If this saves budget funds that would otherwise have to be used for later measures, the general public also benefits. "

2004

With a change in the law that came into force on January 1, 2004, structural short-time working allowance and subsidies for social plan measures in SGB III will be further developed. The revised regulations can now be found as Sections 216a and 216b in a newly created section of SGB III: “Transfer payments”. The goal of the changes is described as follows:

“Better coordination and increased placement orientation of both instruments should in future enable placement from work to work even more frequently while avoiding an intermediate phase of unemployment. […] To clarify the placement goals, the instruments are renamed: Subsidies for social plan measures become transfer measures and structural short-time work allowance becomes transfer short-time work allowance. "

Once again, the explanatory statement for the law states that the structural short-time working allowance has proven its worth.

Changes to transfer short-time work benefits:

  • Significance of the loss of work is no longer required.
  • The previous feature of the structural crisis, which had to result in an operational change, will be dispensed with in the future. This opens the instrument to support all operational restructuring processes.
  • Disincentives for early retirement will be eliminated, activating elements of the old instrument will be further strengthened.

Innovations in transfer measures:

  • The instrument of transfer measures is not limited in time and taken over as regular funding.
  • There is now a legal entitlement to benefits for the promotion of transfer measures.
  • In future, transfer measures must be carried out by a third party.
  • The application of a quality assurance system is made mandatory.
  • The preliminary inclusion of a determination of professional knowledge and integration opportunities (profiling) is also mandatory.

A study on transfer measures published by the Wolfgang Heinze Foundation in 2008 came to the conclusion that in the cases examined, the majority of transfer and qualification companies mediate and advise more effectively and efficiently than employment agencies. Less satisfactory results were only found in cases in which the management had no interest in critically accompanying the work of the transfer and qualification company, there was a lack of information exchange and the transfer carrier had not guaranteed any transparency.

2011

At the beginning of 2011, the regulations on transfer payments will be modified again. The reason for the change in the law states:

“As a result of the economic crisis, as well as in the course of globalization, adjustment processes are taking place in the most varied of economic sectors, which have a structure-changing effect and lead to staff reductions. With the transfer payments, employment promotion law offers an adequate solution to this problem. "

In future, the parties to the company will have to seek advice from the Employment Agency before deciding on the implementation of transfer measures and transfer short-time work. Employees in transfer companies affected by the downsizing must now register with the employment agency as looking for work. This carries out an analysis of potential, advises and starts mediation at an early stage in parallel to transfer payments.

2012

At the beginning of 2012, a success bonus will be introduced for transfer carriers in order to strengthen “job-to-job placement”. After a transitional period, from 2013 only transfer carriers certified by a competent body may carry out measures that have been tested and approved.

Individual evidence

  1. Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs : Transfer payments , as of January 1, 2015
  2. § 111 paragraph 1 number 1 SGB III
  3. a b Federal Employment Agency, short-time work - time series: people in the advertisements for short-time work - according to the entitlement basis , under: http://statistik.arbeitsagentur.de > Statistics by topic> Services SGB III> Short-time work allowance
  4. Henning Klodt and Klaus-Dieter Schmidt in MittAB 4/1995 , page 560
  5. BT-Drs. 13/4941 , page 185 f.
  6. ^ Institute for Work and Technology in the Science Center North Rhine-Westphalia: Social plan grants in operational practice and in an international comparison of instruments for the transfer of employees , 2001 , page 182
  7. ^ Institute for Work and Technology in the Science Center North Rhine-Westphalia: Social plan grants in operational practice and in an international comparison of instruments for the transfer of employees , 2001 , page 184
  8. BT-Drs. 15/1515 , page 74
  9. BT-Drs. 15/1515 , page 92
  10. Paprotny in transfer companies: a useful operational tool? Result of a qualitative study , Wolfgang Heinze Foundation, 2008
  11. BT-Drs. 17/1945 , page 11
  12. BT-Drs. 17/6277 , page 80