Germany extending furlough to 24 months!

[latticechaos]

Saw that Germany was planning to extend their furlough scheme to 24 months because they don't expect the crisis to ease any time soon and they want to help citizens.

Made me feel pretty really, UK is going to see a sackload of job losses over the next few months.

I always felt the French plan for part time furlough was better than our scheme. UK scheme was very generous short term but has a hard ending.

Extending furlough allows industries to keep skilled workers ready for when this is all over. It's much more hopeful for the future than just raising uemployment rates across the board, which our lot won't do either

@ConiferGate
Something like that would be a positive alternative. I am not solely fixed on furlough (I was not furloughed myself) - I just can't bear that our government appears fine with letting people's jobs just go, the losses will be terrible.

@midgebabe Your use of the word 'hopeful' is key, the UK approach feels very hopeless to me, not much attempt to actually help citizens

It feels there is no overall plan for our economy or people's financial well-being. Just 'it'll be over by Christmas'.

Frolicmum I was a child in the 70s. I am actually fine about it now , it was just it was a shock when it flared up again. You won’t know about it as assumably people realise you are German and won’t say it to your face. I live in a small town so incredibly different to London, racism alive and well here. Things like the ‘paki shop’ are still used by some.

It honestly does go deep for some. My Dad (who obviously married a German !) said during the height of the Brexit stuff ‘my parent’s generation didn’t fight the Germans in the war to end up being ruled by them through Brussels ‘. He is actually in favour of Kurzarbeit scheme though.

It’s is only a segment of the population. Read your post to DH and he laughed wryly as has also heard it. He agrees it is just a segment of the population and that it overlaps heavily with a percentage of the population who are pro Brexit. It is mostly the older generation but unfortunately has been passed down in some.

It feels there is no overall plan for our economy or people's financial well-being

I couldn’t agree more. It’s impossible to conceive a more unimaginative, uncaring, unresponsive and incompetent government. If they really were set on changing the country for the better they would be looking at ways to embrace the changes right now and fire up some innovation which will keep us going for the next generation, rather than just selling off anything decent we have and essentially leaving the Brits to pick up the pieces with low paid, low skilled jobs. We are a gutter economy, any success we have left is based on residual activity and we are very poorly prepared to cope with what the future holds.

@ConiferGate
Yes to much of what you say. I read 500,000 decent jobs could be created through a government-backed switch to renewable energy.

Why did we have to have this government for this crisis???

With the governments record at the moment a u turn is a possibility!

Many,many jobs are being lost and going to be lost. I think even before Covid we were in a downward spiral especially on the high street. Covid has accelerated what was going to happen over the next year to 18months. Not sure extending furlough is the answer if a proportion of the jobs were at risk anyway but investment in retraining is definitely needed.

If we don't continue furlough, then we pay out benefits instead, so UC, housing benefit, rising homelessness, all this has to be paid for and will go on for many years - look at what has happened to the former coal mining communities.

As or paying for furlough? why not scrap HS2, what a waste of money and with more home working, less need for commuting.

I have never understood why people in the UK are so happy to have lower tax rates but put up with crappy roads, poor schools, long nhs waiting lists, super expensive railways and very high council taxes..... all of which cost the average person far more than paying slightly higher income taxes.

@thecatsatonthewall yeah this world-beating rhetoric won’t last long.

Why did we have to have this government for this crisis??? let’s just hope it shows them up for what they are quicker than it otherwise would have.

I don’t think there’s an issue with rising benefits as long as people on them are given proper opportunities to reskill / upskill for work in the future. I’d rather that than pouring money into companies that don’t really exist anymore

I think the priority should be to help the 3 million self employed who fell through the cracks (chasms) is Rishi's Covid support and are losing their businesses, homes etc.

@user1497207191 self employed v important point, there have been the two grants made, but it needs to be in return for them paying proper taxes in the future.

[quote ConiferGate]@user1497207191 self employed v important point, there have been the two grants made, but it needs to be in return for them paying proper taxes in the future.[/quote]
The vast majority of s/e who fell through the cracks WERE paying tax etc. Those who only started last year didn't qualify. Those who started half way through the year before didn't qualify if they were employed for the first half. Those with part time s/e (ie early retired with pensions or other jobs) didn't qualify.

www.excludeduk.org/three-million-breakdown

I’m not saying they weren’t paying tax, I’m saying that tax and NI need to be brought up to the same level as everyone else if we want to be able to provide the same support. And tbh, most of the self employed people I know are tradespeople, cleaners etc who actively do everything possible to “manage” their tax so I don’t believe for a second that the vast majority of SE people pay the right amount of tax. Some do of course, many don’t.

Actually I will retract the cleaners part slightly, that’s from personal experience of having been burned by people who weren’t declaring income for other reasons. Not all are like that an many fall under the PA threshold anyway. But tradespeople... that’s definitely a problem area.

Germany has the financial backing of the EU we do not

[quote latticechaos]@ConiferGate
Yes to much of what you say. I read 500,000 decent jobs could be created through a government-backed switch to renewable energy.

Why did we have to have this government for this crisis???[/quote]
We seem to be socially conditioned to be individualistic

So paying taxes " our hard earned money" for things that are communally beneficial seems wrong. Paying money to support the poor seems wrong because an individualistic society holds that everyone has equal opportunity and capability to raise themselves from poverty, and those who don't have a defective character. I think this is bad as it effectively hardwires priveledge into society, so you can see why the rich and powerful propagate this myth

In sweeping generalisations

America is worse than us for this. No nhs , if you can't afford health insurance, tough

Much of Europe aims for a balance between communal and individual, so often higher taxes, yet despite that they still have a good quality of life.

China is purely communal, the individual should not think of themselves only the common good. This is , for me also bad and I think explains why China suffers from a lack of creativity ( I work in research and I see that they buy in research and ideas, it's incredibly rare that they create something themselves and typically if they have it's through a process of exhaustive search of all possibilities )

In all cases it's embedded into education systems so very hard to change

We still have some people on furlough at my company. That is because it's a small ish department with around 30 people. Government rules on social distancing state we are allowed to have18 people in our space. No WFH as job is not suitable.

When the furlough ends and social distancing is still in place (1-2 m) there will be redundancies. People can't stay on payroll if they are not working. And we don't have the space for everyone to work safely within the guidelines.

I'm sure that the German furlough extension is to reflect this above scenario. They obviously put a higher value on experienced "man power" than the UK government (at the moment).

My German friend was on unemployment benefit - she got 80% of her previous salary for a year. So there's not much difference between furlough & unemployment benefit as far as cost to the govt.

Lucky Germans.

I’m not saying they weren’t paying tax, I’m saying that tax and NI need to be brought up to the same level as everyone else if we want to be able to provide the same support.

Missing the point there. Self employed who didn't fall through the cracks got their grants. I.e. those with long established businesses. People who started within the last 2 years mostly got nothing despite submitting returns and paying all tax due. Those with part time self employment got nothing if their "profits" were less than half total income, so those who had other jobs during the 18/9 year also fell into the chasm. (Even those who gave up jobs in 2018 to start a business!). The qualifying criteria was unfair and crazy. Nothing at all to do with whether they were paying the same NIC or not.

@TheClitterati agreed. I was shocked to learn that you don't receive any help over here (or very little).

If you think about it, this person could have worked somewhere for 20 years, paid taxes for so long, I do believe the government should be paying 80%.

It used to be for 2 years in Germany but went down to 1 about 10-15 years ago. I was still a child at the time.

@FoolsAssassin yes, you are right, it's probably two different worlds. London & small villages far from bigger cities.

I'm glad you're ok. My DH's dad never found it easy to "accept". I don't think his plan was for his son to marry a German, I don't think he likes me speaking German to our son very much and he makes a point that his grandson is indeed British. He is but he's also German. It is what it is although he's grown to accept me more since DS arrived. He loves him so much.

I do miss the benefits you get in Germany over here though.

So sorry to hear about the attitude towards Germans some have suffered. I would have hope by now we'd have moved on to have a mutual respect for each nation and of course our generations played no part in past wars. Even surviving servicemen who endured the horrors have made peace. My FIL's family used to have German prisoners of war come to Sunday lunch while they were held here. Their friendship remained all through their lives with Christmas/birthday cards and visits to both countries.

The point a PP made about our taxes and profits in the UK going to fill the coffers of Tory friends is a good one. Although plenty of elite Labour friends too. The rich in the UK have continued to get richer while the rest have been squeezed ever tighter. Does Germany have a fairer system with a lower gap between the highest and lowest earners?

Perhaps Germany is better at catching the furlough fraudsters, Or even preventing companies claiming it for staff that they keep on at work. Our system has been very lax in places

Long NHS waiting lists? For what, compared with where exactly?

Racism against Germans? That makes no sense.

Germany an "industrial powerhouse" but the UK is a "gutter economy"?

The level of stupidity in this thread is what I'd expect from mumsnet. None of you have a single clue what you're talking about. A bizarre, uneducated self-loathing where the Germans "have everything right".

Don't worry, those of us with an actual education will have to pay and be taxed on your behalf.

@Entertained

Long NHS waiting lists? For what, compared with where exactly?

Racism against Germans? That makes no sense.

Germany an "industrial powerhouse" but the UK is a "gutter economy"?

The level of stupidity in this thread is what I'd expect from mumsnet. None of you have a single clue what you're talking about. A bizarre, uneducated self-loathing where the Germans "have everything right".

Don't worry, those of us with an actual education will have to pay and be taxed on your behalf.

What a vile post. I won't go as far as calling you vile but your post reflects the type of person you are through and through.

@Entertained I pay tax as does my husband and probably every other poster. Your insinuation that we are all oiks needing to be supported by your kind is so telling.