The sanctions were suspended from mid-March to mid-May. Another reason is the lack of vacancies.
Public Employment Service (AMS).
In the previous year, the labor market service cut unemployment or emergency benefits far fewer people than in the previous year. The triggers were the sharp decline in vacancies and a general waiver of such barriers between mid-March and mid-May, the AMS announced on Monday.
Although the number of people affected by unemployment has risen to just over a million, only 329,449 vacancies were reported – a quarter fewer than in 2019.
A third fewer sanctions
The AMS blocked unemployment or emergency benefits 93,199 times in 2020, a good third (36.02 percent) fewer sanctions than in 2019. Slightly less than half of the blocks (42,719 cases) concerned real cases of abuse, including 583 support for unwillingness to work completely deleted. Anyone who does not take up work or training has to do without support for six weeks, or eight weeks for repetitions. That affected almost 19,000 cases. Anyone who missed training on individual days without excuse did not receive any money for those days – this happened in around 23,200 cases.
“With the decline in company vacancies, the number of responses, which are the starting point for bans due to abuse of unemployment benefits or emergency assistance, also fell. In addition, due to the Corona situation, we did not impose any sanctions between mid-March and mid-May,” said Johannes Head, board member of the Public Employment Service (AMS), in the broadcast.
In addition to the cases of abuse, job seekers were absent from an agreed AMS appointment 22,000 times without excuse – and lost their support until the next appointment. Most of the time it was “a few days”, according to the AMS. “This decline can be explained by significantly fewer AMS appointments due to the corona situation,” writes Kopf.
Fewer terminations by employees
Another 28,400 people received no unemployment benefit for four weeks because they had given notice themselves; there was also a decrease of 12.9 percent in this category. “Here too, Corona should show its traces.
When the labor market situation is uncertain, workers simply end their employment relationship less often, “said Kopf.
