There is no minimum wage in Germany.
By 400€ jobs, i am referring to this (i believe your German is better than mine).
de.wikipedia.org
In addition, some of the long term unemployed are, right, wrong or otherwise, paid around 1€ per hour in addition to their unemployment benefits to pick up garbage in the parks or other comparable work. This is compulsory activity.
The end effect is that these types of "jobs" reduce the number of people who are "unemployed".
I don't have hard facts to support this, but it is commonly believed that cashiers at one of the national chains which is a drugstore without a pharmacy, are all in the 400€ job program and they are pushed to work almost full time. Government programs top off their wages to keep them above the poverty line. Apparently, many retail or cashier types of jobs are 400€ jobs.
In my experience, there is an undercurrent of nationalism, which is very proud of the economic stats and the notion that Germany is doing well while everyone else may not be. At the same time, when it comes to individual situations, people are not confident or comfortable.
In my opinion, the stats coming out of the German government may be slightly more robust, objective, and independent of political influence than those from the US government, but they are certainly not completely uncooked. |
