The FDP and CDU criticize Heil’s “job turbo” for refugees as inadequate
Labor Minister Heil (SPD) has announced that refugees with the prospect of staying will be brought more quickly “from the school desk of integration courses to the workplace.” The opposition is now criticizing this: The FDP is calling for the focus to be placed on starting a career instead of on language acquisition.
DThe FDP considers the push by Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) for refugees to start working more quickly to be insufficient and calls for the focus to be placed on starting a career rather than on language acquisition. “Integration and language courses are important, but even more important is having your own job, because this is where ongoing and practical integration into society is best achieved,” said the citizens’ money spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Jens Teutrine, to the editorial network Germany (Thursday).
Heil had announced that refugees with a perspective of staying would be brought more quickly “from the school desk of integration courses to the workplace.” After an initial phase of orientation and learning German, the “job turbo” had to be activated, Heil said on Wednesday. This involves around 400,000 people “who are currently on citizen’s benefit and have already acquired language skills”. The largest group of these people are refugees from Ukraine. Above all, greater support from the job centers is planned.
Teutrine explained that a quick career start is more important than a high language level. He also called on job centers to place refugees in jobs for which they are overqualified. He demanded that the legal situation “which also provides for placement in jobs with lower qualification requirements” must be applied consistently.
CDU social politician Kai Whittaker criticized that the “job turbo” could not work given the cuts in funding for the job centers. “The federal government noticed far too late that refugees urgently need to be integrated into the labor market,” the Bundestag member told the RND. “It has already cut the money for job centers and now Labor Minister Heil wants to add more tasks there. However, it is precisely in the job centers that the refugees are placed into work.”
Whittaker insisted on faster access to language courses and on finally shortening the “far too long period between arrival in Germany and the first language course – half a year is too long.” If the traffic light does not cancel these grievances, the announcements from Labor Minister Heil “just hot air,” emphasized Whittaker.