Studio Guest: Gerhard Bosch, Employment market specialist

Gerhard Bosch from the The Institute for Work, Skills and Training. DW-TV: Joining us now is Gerhard Bosch, labour-market expert at Duisburg University's Institute for Work and Qualification. So, no jobs, no contracts, those temp agencies are forced basically to send their staff home. Do you think that indicates that we're seeing the end of the temp-work modell? Gerhard Bosch: I don't think so. Temp agency work was deregulated in Germany in 2003. And since then it has been the fastest growing industry in Germany. The metal industry in particular employed a lot of temp agency workers and now they are dismissing them because they employed them as an economic buffer for difficult times - so that's exactly why they were employed. DW-TV: Well this economic buffer has been in high demand. Actually there are still 700-thousand temp workers in Germany. And as we can see here about 23 percent are working in the engineering & metalworking sector -- many others work in the service industry, in offices, technical jobs -- the lionshare are scattered in other areas though. Now which sector of those mentioned do you think has the best survival chances for temp workers? Gerhard Bosch: I think your statistic shows occupations and activities, not industries. You find most temp workers in the German export industry, in different types of activities. And I think there we have some areas where they still need temp agency work, like machine-tool making. But automotive is going very badly, and they already dismissed most of them. In some service industries, temp agency workers are still needed. DW-TV: Which is maybe also a reason why Germany's official labor agency for the first time has offered to come to the rescue, it says it wants to step in and pay temp workers short-time salaries. Do you think that this is the right step to take? Gerhard Bosch: I think it's a political measure to keep unemployment figures down, because traditionally temp agencies have never got this subsidy from the employment office because this was regarded as their own risk. DW-TV: So what do you think should be done in order to make the temp agency model work better in future? Gerhard Bosch: I think we went too far with deregulation - there's no upper limit for temp agency work so they are replacing permanent workers who are better protected and who would get short-term money from the employment office, and secondly I think wages are not fair. There is a directive from the EU for equal pay, but this is not paid in Germany because there are collective agreements by the unions. Sometimes they pay five, six, seven euro an hour - and replacing people earning 12, 13 euro an hour. DW-TV: Well in the meantime nevertheless quite a number of temp agency workers are being made redundant. What does that mean for the overall labour market here in Germany? Gerhard Bosch: You see temp agency workers are the first to be dismissed, and permanent workers will follow if the crisis continues. The OECD is expecting 700,000 more unemployed. Other prognoses say only 300,000 - it may be in between and it depends very much on how the economic policy of the government really works. DW-TV: OK, Gerhard Bosch - thank you very much for being here. (Interview: Monika Jones)

DW-World | December 2, 2008

Tags:. .deregulated. .dwtv. .gerhard. .duisburg. .buffer