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Business
Business Desk · · 30s summary · 4 min read
Launched in early 2024, Qualifizierungsgeld—a German federal aid covering 60% of net salary for employees undergoing reskilling training—reached only around 350 people between April 2024 and December 2025. Actual spending was €108,035 in 2024 and €442,408 in 2025, far short of the €360 million annual budget. Data revealed by Handelsblatt from a parliamentary inquiry by the Greens fuels criticism over the scheme's complexity and inadequacy.
Qualifyzierungsgeld, a federal aid covering 60% of net salary for employees undergoing reskilling training, reached only around 350 people between April 2024 and December 2025, according to Handelsblatt. These figures come from the German Federal Labour Ministry's response—currently led by Bärbel Bas (SPD)—to a Kleine Anfrage from the Greens, a written parliamentary inquiry procedure at the Bundestag to which the federal government must respond.
Actual spending amounted to €108,035 in 2024 and €442,408 in 2025. The originally planned annual budget for this scheme was €360 million, reduced to €200 million for 2024. Over twenty months, less than €551,000 was mobilised in total.
To qualify for Qualifyzierungsgeld, a company must demonstrate that at least 10 to 20% of its workforce—depending on size—is affected by Strukturwandel, the structural transformation of the economy. It must also have a Betriebsvereinbarung, a legally binding written agreement between employer and works council, or a sector-wide collective bargaining agreement. Finally, it must guarantee that affected employees will not be laid off.
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The Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks (ZDH), the umbrella organisation representing approximately one million craft enterprises in Germany, considers the scheme "de facto irrelevant" for SMEs. The burden of justifications required and the superior appeal of general training aids explain this lack of interest, according to the ZDH. It recommends abolishing Qualifyzierungsgeld to simplify the range of available support instruments.
In industry, workforce reductions currently take precedence over internal reskilling. This trend undermines the very logic of the scheme, which assumes that companies will open new business areas for existing employees rather than laying them off.
Qualifyzierungsgeld stems from recommendations made in 2022 by the advisory council of the Federal Ministry of Economics, then chaired by economist Jens Südekum—now an adviser to Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD). That council advocated for creating new "on-the-job" training instruments to support Germany's economic structural transformation.
The Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), the federal labour market research institute, estimated as early as 2019 that more than one-third of German employees subject to social contributions worked in easily automatable occupations. This structural context prompted the development of the scheme.
disappointing
— Sylvia Rietenberg, Green MP responsible for labour market policy, on the Qualifyzierungsgeld outcome
Rietenberg calls for concrete improvements to the instrument. The Labour Ministry, for its part, sees no need for action: it states that the actual impact of Qualifyzierungsgeld on job security "cannot yet be assessed".
According to the Labour Ministry, the real impact of the scheme on job security has not yet been evaluated. The precise factors behind low uptake—difficulties informing companies, administrative burden, or structural misalignment—are not the subject of any published official analysis at this stage.
It is an aid introduced in early 2024 by the Federal Labour Ministry and the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Employment Agency). It covers 60% of an employee's net salary during reskilling training, provided the company is demonstrably affected by structural transformation and guarantees that affected employees will not be laid off.
Several factors converge: restrictive access conditions (works agreement or collective bargaining agreement required, workforce thresholds to justify), administrative burden according to the craft sector, and industry's current tendency to reduce headcount rather than reskill—which contradicts the scheme's logic.
Green MP Sylvia Rietenberg calls for concrete improvements. The ZDH (Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks, the craft sector's umbrella organisation) goes further and recommends abolition to simplify the range of available training support instruments.
The Labour Ministry, led by Bärbel Bas (SPD), sees no need for immediate action. It holds that Qualifyzierungsgeld's concrete impact on job security "cannot yet be assessed".
The IAB estimated as early as 2019 that more than one-third of German employees subject to social contributions worked in easily automatable occupations. Qualifyzierungsgeld was designed precisely to help these workers transition to new business areas without layoffs.