Ukraine refugees arriving at Berlin Central Station Photo: spreepicture
From BZ/dpa
The job centers in Berlin are preparing to look after around 60,000 Ukrainian refugees from June.
“We are preparing for this deadline,” said a spokesman for the Berlin-Brandenburg employment agency on Wednesday. Accordingly, among other things, a special hotline for information in Ukrainian and Russian was set up.
So far, refugees in Berlin have been looked after by the district offices. According to federal plans, social benefits are to be paid out via the job centers from June 1st. Refugees from Ukraine should then be able to receive basic security – such as Hartz IV recipients. The “Tagesspiegel” (Wednesday) had previously reported on it.
A possible overload of the Berlin job center is not to be feared according to the spokesman. The employment agency already had “a certain amount of crisis experience” in 2015, when thousands of refugees, mainly from Syria, came to Berlin and through the payment of short-time work benefits during the corona pandemic, said the spokesman. In the job centers in Brandenburg, 24,000 refugees are expected.
The prerequisite for receiving basic security in the future is that the Ukrainian refugees have applied for a residence permit for temporary protection, have been entered in the central register of foreigners and meet the other requirements for basic security benefits in accordance with the Social Security Code. The Bundestag and Bundesrat still have to pass the corresponding draft law.
