Contents page 1 — “Finally out of the rat race” page 2 — The job centre had Rubelt placed On a page to read

sits On a Tuesday in January, Olaf Rubelt at the end of a long dark wood table in the office of the company Reimann travel in Hagen. In front of him-printed paper of several pages closely. Rubelt, leafing through the pages briefly, then he takes a pen and puts his name at the end. It is a great Moment in his life. For the first Time in many years, the 56 has signed-Year-old a contract of employment.

More than ten years of Hartz IV-recipients Rubelt was. However, since the 1. February, he is now working 40 hours a week at a standard wage. Thanks to it has the also called the part have a chance to act on 1. January is in force. It allows employers to hire people who were within seven years at least six years of Hartz IV. The wage the state pays for five years, in the first two years, then the promotion of melts to ten percent annually.

Rubelt be one of the first in Germany to benefit from the new promotion is expected to. In most job centres, it is still in the process, business, or social agencies, and matching candidates to bring together. That went on for Rubelt a little faster, is a godsend.

“Wouldn’t be the thing for you?”

and his new employer to know for a Long time. Jörg Reimann, the owner of a Bus and travel company, which currently has 30 employees and 19 buses operates, he went in the seventies together in the school. Only a few streets away from each other, you grew up in hohenlimburg, a suburb of Hagen. Both have spent in the 29,000 inhabitants of the place her whole life, because you meet from time to time, especially since Rubelt in a number of Associations involved.

On the Thursday before Christmas eve, the two unequal men, the unemployed and the entrepreneurs together, as is often in the courtyard of the company for a bit and chat, as Reimann suddenly think of something. There’s this thing with the funded Agencies. Reimann drives occasionally, the unemployed and their companions from the job centre to job interviews, so he hears more of the latest developments. With his son, the 35-year-old Junior chef, he had not talked about whether that would be a possibility for your company, but then again forget. Up to the Moment when his old schoolmate standing in front of him. “Tell me, Olaf,” he asks. “Wouldn’t be the thing for you?”

Olaf Rubelt (right) and Junior boss, Markus Reimann (left) at the signing of the contract © Katharina Schuler for TIME, Online

On this day, Rubelt, is leaving the company Reimann with a slightly unreal feeling. Have offered him a Job? Certainty he gets a few minutes later. As he rises in front of the house of his mother out of the car, ringing his cell phone. The Jobcenter Hagen’s turn. The company Reimann have reported, just that she wanted to hire him on the basis of the new part have a chance to act. If he was interested in? Rubelt must not think for a long time. He says immediately.

“Finally out of the rat race”, was his first thought, says Rubelt three weeks later, on Reimann’s meeting table. But how is it that a guy like him for so long, Hartz-IV-receiver? One who has a business education, the sociable, and so well able to organise that he is in several Clubs on the Board.

“work was not a lot of”

After his training, Rubelt works with a large fishing equipment manufacturers. In 2006, the company has to downsize, Rubelt loses his Job. In the office of a company for fixing parts, he finds a new job. But again, he’s out of luck: just before he is to get there in February 2008, a permanent contract, the company is sold, the location in which he is engaged, is closed. “With labour was not a lot,” says Rubelt in retrospect. So he decides to become self-employed. For the avid Angler, the business idea is: Rubelt, download the Jobcenter supports the Foundation opened an angel.

But then leaves him to his wife, as a single father of a nearly three-year-old daughter parents can Rubelt, no more than eight hours a day in the Shop. The new boyfriend of his wife is also in the same fishing club as he, with the separation Rubelt loses half his clientele. In 2011, he files for bankruptcy. And even if he would have found a Job again, would not have been worth it for him, even part time. Because in the six years of the insolvency proceedings of each of the income is seized, over and above the necessities of Life.