A high-profile employment programme at the centre of German Chancellor Mr Gerhard Schröder's labour market reforms has led to the creation of 600,000 new jobs in less than two months, according to his Social Democrat Party (SPD).
The figures for the German government's €400 per month "mini-jobs" programme for low-wage earners, to be published today, are likely to provide the chancellor with a political boost ahead of an SPD congress on Sunday, at which his latest, controversial economic reform package will be voted on.
The mini-jobs have been available since April 1st, and since then "600,000 new employment relationships have been created", according to an SPD report. The figure is in addition to the 5.3 million already registered as working in the low-wage sector.
The mini-jobs were an integral part of the package of labour market changes introduced last year. The programme was designed to be simple and unbureaucratic, with employees making no tax or social security payments, and employers paying a flat-rate of 25 per cent.
Some 30,000 of the new jobs are for cleaners and others working in private households, a sector where, until recently, most employees were not registered with the authorities.
