The former Federal Minister of Labor and SPD leader Andrea Nahles will take office as head of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) on August 1. The 52-year-old has concrete plans, which she announced last weekend. Among other things, she stands for a general overhaul of Hartz IV and wants to push automation within the agency.
The plans of Andrea Nahles for the Federal Employment Agency
On August 01, 2022, former SPD leader Andrea Nahles will take the stage as chairwoman of the Federal Employment Agency. She succeeds Detlef Scheele, who had held the board since 2017.
In doing so, Nahles wants to bring her expertise from the federal level to the table and has already communicated concrete plans in recent days. The BA is to benefit from her experience in Berlin, as she revealed in an interview with Der Spiegel.
One of the plans involves the so-called Bürgergeld, which the current traffic light government has planned. Nahles sees it as an opportunity to “close the chapter on Hartz”. It is to be paid as a form of social, state assistance to needy people and takes the place of the unemployment benefit II, so far colloquially known as “Hartz IV”.
Especially since the situation on the labor market has improved significantly today, the concept is no longer up to date.
BA to become Germany’s most modern digital organization
At the same time, Nahles also concretized plans to make the Federal Employment Agency a pioneer in Germany as part of an offensive in the area of automation and digitalization.
As reported by Börse-Online magazine, the new boss plans to develop the agency into a flagship organization in the field of automation and digitization in Germany. From her point of view, a “decade of automation” is needed, Nahles is quoted as saying.
However, in order for this to be implemented, she said, the country would have to rely on help from the German government. This would have to provide appropriate technologies such as cloud solutions.
A key aspect of this is electronic record keeping, in which the German capital Berlin is already playing a pioneering role. It wants to have switched completely to the e-file by 2024, as was recently announced.
Existing digital services of the BA, which include, for example, the possibility to register for unemployment online, are to be consistently expanded under her leadership. To do this, he said, they want to continue down the path toward automation and push ahead with the use of artificial intelligence.
Many construction sites
However, Andrea Nahles faces a mammoth task when she takes office at the helm of the Federal Employment Agency. Also, the financial situation of the agency currently looks anything but rosy.
Especially in view of the Corona pandemic, the saved reserves of almost 27 billion euros are “more than eaten up”. According to Nahles, the current budget for 2022 already lacks more than two billion euros.
As a new, not planned cost factor, the refugees from Ukraine, which are financed through the basic security, would be added. Short-time work and the energy crisis are other factors that do not currently allow a serious forecast. Nahles does not expect normal operations to be possible in the next few months.
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