At its peak, short-time work benefits were paid to almost six million employees.
(Photo: action press)
Berlin The company received a letter from the Employment Agency in Munich in mid-July: “Short-time working allowance has been approved in your company and granted as part of a preliminary decision,” it says. Now it is time to check the information in the applications for short-time work.
The employer is therefore asked to submit time sheets and pay slips. If anything is unclear as part of the comparison, “the on-site inspection will be continued in your company,” writes the agency.
Letters like this have already been sent all over Germany – to the surprise of many recipients. “Many companies do not have the final bill on their screen,” says labor lawyer Christoph Kurzböck from the law firm Rödl & Partner in Nuremberg. But the notices clearly state that the short-time allowance will only be paid temporarily.
The Federal Audit Office is paying particular attention
The corona crisis has pushed spending on short-time allowance to a record high, with it likely to be more than 40 billion euros by the end of this year. Because the reserve of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) has long since melted, the federal government steps in with tax money. After almost seven billion euros last year, this year he will probably transfer around 17 billion euros as liquidity aid.
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In view of these sums, the Federal Audit Office will pay particular attention to the fact that the short-time allowance has been used properly. The test procedure is running. As early as November 2020, the Court of Auditors warned in a report that the federal government had to reduce the risk of abuse of short-time work benefits.
In order to save companies from financial difficulties and to prevent layoffs, the employment agencies put speed over care during the crisis. In some cases, employees from other areas were trained in four-day webinars to pay off the benefits. Otherwise the enormous demand could not have been met. At its peak, the BA registered around six million short-time workers in April 2020. In the last week of March 2020 alone, there were more short-time work advertisements than in the entire financial crisis.
In view of the extraordinary circumstances, the Federal Agency will now – with the Federal Audit Office in the back – take a closer look. With 40 billion euros in short-time work benefits, an error rate of just one percent would cost taxpayers 400 million euros. The final billing is expected to drag on until mid-2023.
Real abuse is likely to have occurred rather rarely, the BA had investigated around 5,800 suspected cases by the end of June. But mistakes can have happened, for example, that public holidays were billed for short-time work or that mini-jobbers were included.
No company now has to proactively approach the employment agency, says specialist lawyer Kurzböck. “But those who do not present the requested documents or present them too late run the risk that part of the money or the entire sum will have to be repaid.”
Short-time work has now fallen sharply
As long as a company only acted negligently when reporting the short-time work, there was usually only the threat of repayments. In the case of knowingly false information, on the other hand, it is criminally relevant social security fraud.
As soon as the settlement notification from the employment agency is there, companies have a month to file an objection, says Kurzböck. He advises companies to carefully examine the notifications. “Because the employment agency can also have made a mistake with the accounting.”
Overall, short-time work has now fallen sharply. According to the Ifo Institute, 610,000 employees were still on short-time work in September – after 694,000 in August and 1.07 million in July. While short-time working is falling in industries that have been severely affected by the corona crisis, such as the hospitality industry, a small increase has recently been observed in industry. The main reason for this is the supply bottlenecks for preliminary products such as semiconductors.
More: “More and more new employees” – companies want to hire more than they have done for three years