La sociologie allemande face aux réformes Hartz

Abstract

In the early 2000s, Germany’s Hartz reforms led to a radical overhaul in social welfare policies and in the administrative treatment of unemployed persons. Pioneering the concept of “jobseeker activation”, these laws created specific administrative pathways linked to different types of unemployment benefits. They also impoverished beneficiaries and increased case workers’ discretionary powers. In other words, they degraded the resources that unemployed persons had at their disposal when dealing with bureaucracies and employers. Beyond this observation, German sociology has debunked a series of myths that were vital to the Hartz reforms (and which were sometimes transferred subsequently to other countries or institutions). These include ideas like activation emancipates its beneficiaries, prevents exclusion, facilitates job searches, helps generate diagnoses that unemployed persons and their case workers are able to share and, lastly, adds a "social component" to problematic cases.

Keywords

• Germany
• Hartz laws
• labour market
• labour policies
• jobs centres
• unemployment