(de-news.net) – The Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA) has argued that the Federal, State, and Municipal Commission should broaden its operational mandate and formulate a more extensive range of inquiries aimed at strengthening labor-market integration and reinforcing incentives to take up employment. By articulating this position in an internal paper, the BDA situates its appeal within a larger call for comprehensive restructuring of the welfare state, asserting that only a more coherent and strategically aligned framework could address persistent imbalances between social protection and labor-market participation.
The assessment maintains that any redesign should prioritize fairness, reliability, and procedural efficiency, with the governing principle defined as guaranteeing that individuals engaged in paid employment consistently enjoy a marked financial advantage over those who remain outside the labor force. Because the ultimate objective of reform, according to the BDA, is to ensure that people can sustainably support themselves without reliance on supplementary state benefits, the organization stresses that both an ambitious program and a correspondingly resolute implementation effort would be expected from the federal government.
The association further demands that the Commission’s scope be formally extended to encompass unemployment insurance, emphasizing a structural discrepancy within the broader social insurance architecture. While other branches of the system—such as pension, health, and long-term care insurance—possess permanent expert bodies tasked with advancing necessary reforms, unemployment insurance currently lacks an equivalent institution devoted to long-term assessment and modernization. In addition to this institutional gap, the paper proposes a thorough reexamination of the organizational configuration of employment agencies and job centers, arguing that greater coherence, streamlined responsibilities, and more efficient service delivery would be essential for improving labor-market outcomes.
The Commission’s final report, expected to be presented in January, is set to address several structural issues, including the potential consolidation and harmonization of federal social benefits. The BDA president interprets the 502 distinct benefits identified by the Munich-based Ifo Institute as symptomatic of a bureaucratic environment that resembles a Kafkaesque administrative labyrinth rather than a modern, transparent, and functionally coordinated system. In his view, such complexity not only undermines clarity for beneficiaries but also results in inefficiencies, as billions in public funds are allocated annually without systematic evaluation of their effectiveness or their alignment with intended policy goals. He argues that an opaque structure becomes socially regressive by obscuring outcomes, weakening accountability, and making it more difficult to direct resources toward those most in need.
The BDA emphasizes that the intention behind reform should be optimization rather than reduction of support, particularly through a significant expansion of digitalization, which it saw as essential for streamlining procedures, reducing redundancies, and improving oversight. According to this perspective, a welfare state that adapts to contemporary administrative standards, rewards employment, and channels assistance more precisely to vulnerable groups would be better positioned to regain broader public confidence and legitimacy within an increasingly complex socio-economic environment.
