AfD on work and social affairs

The AfD wants to activate and train unemployed and underemployed people in Lower Saxony rather than rely on immigration. It does not see a general shortage of skilled workers. It also wants to reduce the emigration of well-trained Germans.

The AfD says many people in Lower Saxony have no job. These people should get training and work. So the AfD sees no need for immigrants with little training. Well-trained Germans should stay in the country.

The priority check is to stay; it tests whether domestic applicants are available for a job before foreign workers are admitted. According to the program, only a few occupations have more vacancies than applicants. It cites about 300,000 mostly well-trained Germans who emigrate each year, including technicians, engineers, skilled workers and doctors. The AfD calls for measures against this emigration.

The AfD wants people who have paid in for many years to receive Arbeitslosengeld I (unemployment insurance benefit) for longer. Hartz IV recipients should get into regular jobs through more training and support and be allowed to earn more on the side.

People who worked for a long time should get unemployment benefit for longer. That is what the AfD wants. People on Hartz IV should get more help to find work. They should also be allowed to earn more extra money.

Those who have paid into unemployment insurance for a long time should not drop to Arbeitslosengeld II (basic welfare) after only twelve months; the AfD sees older workers in particular as disadvantaged. It rejects treating long-time workers and people who immigrated into the welfare system the same financially. For Hartz IV, the platform calls for more training, expanded job support, stronger help with placement in companies, and higher limits on additional earnings. The Federal Employment Agency should be kept. Unemployment statistics should also count people in training programs, older people and the sick.

The AfD wants temporary agency workers to receive the same pay as comparable permanent staff from their first day of work. Flexibility for employers must not come solely at workers' expense.

Temp workers work for a while at another company. The AfD wants them to earn as much as the regular staff there. This should apply from the very first day.

The platform accepts that agency work lets companies respond more flexibly to swings in demand. But it says the workers accept clear disadvantages compared with permanent employees in return. For that reason, pay should be equal from the start.

The AfD endorses minimum wages as a tool against wage dumping, which it attributes to EU free movement and the immigration of low-skilled people. Temporary agency workers are also to receive a flexibility bonus.

The AfD supports the minimum wage. It should protect people from very low pay. Temp workers should get extra pay on top of their wage. Temp workers are hired by one firm and lent to others.

The platform justifies the minimum wage as protection against wage dumping, which the AfD says results from free movement within the EU and from the immigration of low-skilled refugees. Temporary agency workers are to get a flexibility bonus. It would be paid as a percentage surcharge on the relevant wage. The AfD wants this to compensate for the higher risk of dismissal and the flexibility expected of these workers.

The AfD wants targeted training for unemployed people and Hartz IV recipients, coordinated with small and medium-sized businesses. Employers would get integration subsidies that start high and then decline. In the party's view, current measures miss what the labor market needs.

The AfD wants better training for people without work. Small and mid-sized firms should have a say. Firms get money when they hire and train jobless people. The money is high at first and then goes down.

Training is to follow what small and medium-sized firms in particular need; the platform says they employ 80 percent of workers. Subsidies to employers would first offset onboarding costs and then fall as the worker becomes more productive. The AfD also demands that all benefit recipients be included in job placement and that statistics not be dressed up, noting that in November 2019 only 36 percent of Hartz IV recipients were registered as unemployed. Vacancies listed by the employment agency should be checked promptly. To reduce youth unemployment, the party calls for reviving the JUMP program and for more performance-oriented schooling.

The AfD wants job centers to stop pushing older recipients of Arbeitslosengeld II (basic unemployment benefit) into early retirement. Older employees are to be kept in the labor market as skilled workers, including through training and more flexible hours.

Job centers often send older jobless people into early retirement. The AfD wants to stop this. Older people should be able to work longer if they want. There should be more training and flexible hours.

According to the platform, recipients of Arbeitslosengeld II are pushed into retirement from age 63, which the AfD says only serves to improve statistics. The party also criticizes that there have been more than a million long-term unemployed for years, especially among those aged 50 to 64. It calls for age-appropriate career paths with better training programs and more individual working hours. The move from work to retirement should become more gradual, and working past retirement age should be made easier.

The AfD calls for measures against the emigration of well-trained Germans and wants to stop the immigration of low-skilled people. It argues that these professionals were educated at public expense here but pay taxes and contributions abroad.

Many well-trained Germans move abroad. The AfD wants them to stay. It wants to improve conditions in Germany for that. People with little training should no longer immigrate.

The platform says around 300,000 mostly young Germans leave each year to work elsewhere. The AfD lists as causes an overstretched health sector, high taxes on labor, heavy bureaucracy, limited professional freedom, and too little support for future technologies and start-ups. It considers these problems solvable. In its view, the immigration of low-skilled people often burdens the welfare systems.