This country has the worst unemployment benefits in northern Europe

by euronews-english

3 comments
  1. There was a recent post over on /r/ukpersonalfinance about a German trying to figure out what they’d be eligible for if they lost their job and were shocked at how bad it is. People in that thread were also losing their minds over the fact that Germans get something like 70% of their salary for 6 months

  2. It’s not just the amount of money either. Not Germany, but I got 80% for 18 months, I couldn’t find a job so I also got a personal work coach, language courses, paid Microsoft certifications, and a quit smoking program!

    I got a job and and my work coach was genuinely pleased, sent me flowers and took a lot of pride in helping me.

  3. Devil’s advocate here (standard disclaimer here; not a tory, just trying to have a discussion here so please don’t jump on me) how many people does this actually affect?

    The actual unemployment rate here in the UK is negligible. If you’ve been in a decent professional job for a while, chances are you will have a decent enhanced redundancy scheme to cover you whilst you find the right opportunity so most will never sign on. If you are in unskilled work there are plenty of other opportunities. Still others will have health or other issues preventing them from working in the first place. The actual number of genuine jobseekers must be vanishingly small.

    The bigger issue is surely other benefits aimed at people who can’t actually work (eg disability benefits, carers allowances etc) which are often punitively low.

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