Corona help: the crisis continues for many self-employed people – economy

For almost exactly 20 years, Jonas Engelmeier, 39, sprinted from one major event to the next. The man from Dorsten in North Rhine-Westphalia worked as a freelance event technician at the Olympic Games in Sochi, he took care of special effects at the Eurovision Song Contest. Then the corona pandemic came and caused his order situation to collapse, “to zero”, as he says. Today Engelmeier drives heavy tractors, mows lawns or cuts fences free: he now works as a hired gardener. “The crisis has shown that smaller self-employed people in Germany are not valued at all,” says Engelmeier.