BERLIN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- One in three German employees who are currently on short-time work were afraid of losing their job, according to a study by the Leibniz Center for Germany's ZEW research institute published on Monday.
"The instrument of short-time work is no longer regarded by those affected as reliable protection against unemployment," commented Friedrich Heinemann, co-author of the study and division manager at ZEW Mannheim.
In particular, employees who were already in "precarious employment" before the coronavirus pandemic were feeling the negative consequences of the crisis. This group already had a much higher risk of becoming unemployed in the first weeks of the lockdown and would now assess their future unemployment risk as comparatively high, according to ZEW.
The study revealed that German employees, who had already been made redundant without payment, were more pessimistic than short-time workers. Of those, only one in four believed that their own jobs would survive the COVID-19 crisis.
However, the vast majority of German employees generally considered their own job "comparatively secure."
Despite the severity of the economic slump in March and April, the proportion of respondents who saw little or no risk of losing their jobs for the year fell from 92.5 to 85.1 percent between January and May, the study found.
Growing concerns about job losses were widespread in such sectors as hospitality, arts and entertainment and retail sectors, which were particularly affected by the acute crisis phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. In the arts and entertainment sector, a good third of those surveyed considered the loss of their own jobs to be realistic, the study showed.
"The government's anti-crisis measures enjoy overall confidence. However, in the industries and groups of people particularly affected, many now doubt that the extensive crisis packages will actually prevent serious job losses," Heinemann said. Enditem
