FRANKFURT: Hundreds of thousands of job-seekers in Germany could face the first few days of the new year without any money after a computer glitch has led to delays in the payment of unemployment benefits, it emerged on Friday.

As the millions of unemployed people in Germany prepare for the already highly unpopular "Hartz IV" reforms, which come into effect on January 1, the Federal Labour Agency, which is responsible for the assessment and payment of benefits, revealed that a "tragic error" meant that many of the first dole cheques of the new year would arrive a couple of days late.

Around five per cent of the close to three million long-term unemployed could have to wait one or two days before they received their money because their bank account numbers were incorrectly filled in on the new claim forms, labour agency board member Heinrich Alt explained.

In cases of hardship, the claimants concerned could go to their local labour office and receive a cash payout.

It was a "tiny error with big repurcussions," Alt said.

Under the so-called "Hartz IV" reforms, named after Peter Hartz, personnel director at Germany's biggest car maker Volkswagen, who masterminded an original set of labour market reforms a few years ago, unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed will be substantially reduced.

The aim is to persuade those people who have been out of work for more than a year to accept a job, no matter how seemingly low paid.

But the reforms have come under fierce criticism because they are likely to hit job-seekers in the economically depressed east of the country a lot harder than their western counterparts. And unemployment in eastern Germany is more than twice as high as it is in the west, largely for structural reasons.

Gulf Daily News

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2005