Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

made use of this provision. By 2003, this share had risen to 70 per cent (Büttner et al. 2005:
7). Workers endangered by unemployment in companies undertaking personnel adjustment
processes (e.g. due to partial closure) are entitled to ´structural short-time working
allowance´ (Strukturkurzarbeitergeld; §216b SGB III) and are obliged to undertake requalification
measures in order to find a new job. From 2005, the allowance can be received
for one year (instead of two years as before).
In combination, those three provisions had brought onto way the ´59 rule´ utilised on a
great scale by German companies to release workers (see section 3.2.1.). Since the middle of
the 1990s, attempts were undertaken to stop this procedure. Firstly, the eligible age for the
maximum period of receipt of unemployment benefit was raised to 57 in 1997. Secondly,
from 1993 on, companies have to pay back the unemployment benefit for dismissed older
workers for a period of up to 32 months (§147a SGB III). 19 Thirdly, § 428 SGB III was to
expire by February 2006 (but has, in fact, been prolonged to the end of 2007). Fourthly, the
pensionable age for the old-age pension after unemployment was raised to 63 years. And
fifthly, the worker incurs a loss of unemployment benefit for several weeks if he/she
consented to the dismissal and, since 1998, sees his unemployment benefit reduced by the
amount of the severance payment. 20
The break with the unemployment pathway and with the ´59/57 rule´ was complete after
the Law on Labour Market Reforms of 2004 which shortened the maximum period of
receipt of AL-Geld I for workers ´55+´ to 18 months by February 2006, and the introduction
of a lump-sum AL-Geld II in place of the previously earnings-related benefit. However, due
to the ongoing impasse on the German labour market, the grand CDU/SPD coalition
prolonged again the period of receipt of AL-Geld I to 24 months for persons aged 58+ with
retrospective effect from 1 st January 2008.
Since the middle of the nineties, labour market policy in Germany has been
characterised by a trend towards ´activating´ the unemployed (Buchegger-Traxler et al.
2003: 38). That trend has exposed job-seekers to more strict control and to more severe
19 The § 147a SGB III was first introduced in 1982 and tightened up in 1985 in order to make the preretirement
scheme more attractive as alternative to the ´59 rule´ (Kühlewind 1988: 55-56). The law had little
impact on firms´ behaviour, as only about one in every 100 firms dismissing workers aged 56+ were affected
(Teipen 2003: 88-89; OECD 2005: 118). The provision expired by the end of 2007.
20 Firms could prevent this by dismissing older workers due to operational reasons in cooperation with the
works council (Oswald 1999: 203).
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