"In 2009, with the introduction of the special regulation according to Section123 (as of 1 April 2012, Section142), Sub-section 2 of Book III of the Social Code (SGB III), the eligibility conditions for unemployment insurance were reformed. The regulation, which is restricted to a period of three years, provides for a shortened qualifying period of six instead of the usually necessary twelve months, if persons had predominantly been in short-term employment. The purpose of the regulation is to facilitate access to unemployment insurance benefits for the group of employees who, on account of frequent, often short-term working contracts, have difficulty accruing qualifying periods within the two-year framework period. The current Research Report presents central findings of the evaluation study carried out at the Institute for Employment Research. What was examined in particular was the structure of applicants to date in accordance with central socio-demographic characteristics. The number of (analysable) applicants for the period August 2009 to March 2010 amounted for the entire Federal Republic to 583 persons. In the period April 2010 to December 2010, 356 persons submitted an application. In the case of more than half of the applications, it was a question of artists and creative artists (Kunst- und Kulturschaffende). With 36.4 per cent of the persons who submitted an application between August 2009 and March 2010, at least one application was granted. For the applicants in the period April 2010 to December 2010, this figure came to 55.3 per cent. Applications were most frequently rejected when the employment relationships of the applicants predominantly did not have a duration of six weeks or less. If these employment conditions had amounted to ten, instead of six, weeks, then roughly half of the applicants would have fulfilled this condition, but their application was rejected on account of the current regulation. Amongst artists and creative artists these shares are somewhat higher. In addition to this, the implementation of the special regulation was extrapolated at selected employment offices in an exploratory manner. The evaluation of qualitative expert questionnaires shows that the special regulation exhibits a highly differentiated significance in the day-to-day work of the specialised staff and managers asked throughout various different organisational units and was hence evaluated in just as diverse a way. While in the domain of the benefits department, the special regulation was seen as relevant in the sense of working practices, in its version valid since August 2009 it is evaluated as being tendentially little expedient. Within the context of job placement on the other hand, it plays a subordinate role and cannot thus be evaluated in a functional way. Here, instead, the survey reveals a series of different factors and conditions - both external and inner-organisational ones - that structure the possibilities for action which these specialised staff have when supervising and placing short-term employees and that show themselves to be clearly more relevant to day-to-day work." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))
