The employment agency in North Rhine-Westphalia sharply criticizes the planned halt to citizen's income for Ukrainian refugees. Head Roland Schüßler sees no fiscal or labor market benefit in it. Instead, he highlights the success of integration efforts so far.
Roland Schüßler, chairman of the executive board of the North Rhine-Westphalia regional directorate of the Federal Employment Agency, has criticized the black-red federal government's plan to exclude Ukrainian refugees from citizen's income starting April 1, 2025. Instead, they would receive lower benefits like those for asylum seekers. "I don't need this step at all right now," Schüßler told the "Rheinische Post." He conceded: "From a sense of justice, I can understand it. Fiscally, it's a zero-sum game, and in terms of the labor market, it makes no sense."
In 2024, around 6.3 billion euros were paid out to Ukrainians. Schüßler emphasized that integration has been successful so far. Since February 2022, 45,200 Ukrainians have been gainfully employed in NRW with social insurance, plus 57,400 people from the eight main countries of origin for asylum seekers. "With citizen's income recipients, we can start labor market integration immediately – organizing placement talks and language courses, addressing qualification needs," he explained. Without the status as job center clients, this will become more difficult.
Additionally, in the debate on sanctions against uncooperative citizen's income recipients, Schüßler called for simpler procedures. "Anyone who really wants to refuse work doesn't say so – they go to the interview and behave in a way that no one hires them. The job center would then have to prove that, collect feedback from companies, it's far too complicated," he said. "It has to become simpler." Sanctions are needed for those who want to exploit the system.