Keywords
Citation
(1999), "'Alliance for jobs' means fresh start for Germany", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 23 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.1999.00323gab.013
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
'Alliance for jobs' means fresh start for Germany
"Alliance for jobs" means fresh start for Germany
Keywords: Distance learning, Internet
Germany is striving for an alliance of modernizers with business and the unions in order to carry through the "Alliance for jobs", said a government statement.
As a joint effort between management, trade unions and the government, the Alliance wants to achieve through close consensus on a tripartite basis lasting improvements in the long and medium term on the unemployment situation: "since the 1980s the greatest social problem in Germany".
The programme is intended to symbolize restructuring and renewal, giving a fresh start for the long term to strengthen this government's plans for extensive reform in the current legislative period. All actions will be judged by three criteria:
- 1.
expanding employment;
- 2.
creating more training places;
- 3.
boosting competitiveness.
The aims set out in the working paper include inter alia lasting cuts in non-wage labour costs, structural reform of the social insurance system, a division of labour that promotes employment, business tax reforms to ease the burden on small and medium-sized firms, and greater opportunities for profit sharing among employees.
Working groups are being established to co-ordinate progress with a timetable so that eventually a joint proposal can be put to Federal Chancellor Gerhard SchrÎder. As the statement puts it, the approach is co-operative.
The government has also pledged better use of resources and improvements in the environment; greater efficiency in higher education; the provision of greater independence and a dignified lifestyle for older citizens; and the assurance of better quality of life in the whole of Germany, "a country friendly to children and the family".