Unemployed Germans are not allowed to be layabouts. Job centres are giving out pedometers and telling the unemployed to take up jogging.
The Ministry of Labour scheme also offers free exercise classes and gym attendance to the older and longterm unemployed because it believes that “actively seeking work” should mean exactly that. Exercise can help to improve mood and general motivation, and may help jobseekers to find employment, the authorities believe.
Although jogging is not strictly compulsory, job centres in Brandenburg state are splitting their jobseekers into teams and have promised prizes to the group that records the greatest number of steps in a 40-day period. That does not include an actual job, however.
The German approach may help to explain why the country has