In one district in Germany’s eastern state of Thuringia, asylum seekers can already be seen busily sweeping streets, trimming hedges or cleaning windows.

Under the new system introduced in the Saale-Orla district, all healthy adult residents of the asylum reception center are being made to work for up to four hours a day. For this they receive an allowance of 80 cents per hour, which is paid straight onto their special debit card.

The work isn’t new – what is new is that those who refuse face cuts to their financial support, of up to around 180 euros per month.

Also read: How Germany seeks to get tough on asylum seekers 

Saale-Orla is the first place in Germany to enforce the so-called 'Arbeitspflicht', or work obligation, even though the provision allowing authorities to insist that asylum seekers work has been there all along in the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, which was introduced in 1993.

So why is compulsory work for asylum seekers being discussed now?

Political signal

As far as Mario Voigt, the Christian Democratic Party leader in eastern state of Thuringia is concerned, it sends the right political signal: "Everyone who benefits from the solidarity of the community in Germany also has to give something back," Voigt told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND).

The head of the Saale-Orla district council Reinhard Sager, agrees: "Anyone who stays in Germany for a longer period of time has to get a job. That’s what the community expects," he told Germany’s largest paper, Bild.

It’s also what many asylum seekers themselves want, the council president added. And like them, he wants to see the scheme broaden beyond shoveling snow and other "employment therapy" activities to include regular jobs in companies that are desperate for staff, for example the catering industry.

Jens Marco Scherf, a Greens Party member who favors strong measures to limit irregular migration, also supports expanding the scope of the compulsory work scheme beyond community jobs. Scherf sees an additional benefit in the plan, in that migrants’ "professional, linguistic and social acceptance" will improve, the sooner they are able to work. 

Also read: Germany wants to cut benefits for refugees

The narrative of 'work-shy' refugees

Surveys by the German Institut für Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung (IAB) have shown that 70 percent of refugees and asylum seekers want to work. The government is also reducing some of the barriers to the labor market so that asylum seekers can pay taxes and contribute to the economy, along with all the other benefits of regular employment.

Many asylum seekers and refugee-led organizations complain that, despite these positive moves, there are still endless forms to fill out and complicated procedures to have foreign qualifications recognized before a person can even start looking for a job.

And many, like Hamado Dipama, a spokesperson for the Bavarian Refugee Council, see the compulsory work scheme as separate from the government’s efforts to improve access to the labor market. More than that, Dipama, who came to Germany as a refugee from Burkina Faso, says the measures discriminate against asylum seekers.

"It is a positive change to allow refugees to work, but I don’t accept the term ‘obligation’ because it suggests that asylum seekers won’t work unless they are forced to," says Dipama.

Doreen Denstädt, Thuringia’s integration minister, says the same "false narrative of work-shy refugees" is being pushed by right-wing groups in Germany.

According to her, most asylum seekers are highly motivated and want to be active. They will accept the compulsory jobs because there are no better options, Dipama believes, but it would be better if they received work permits. "I just want politicians to finally take the situation of asylum seekers seriously. It’s not these handouts, these small work opportunities that people want," he told InfoMigrants.

'We have gone back 30 years'

A member of the Greens in parliament, Andreas Audretsch warns that the compulsory work scheme would benefit no one.

"Making it more difficult for people to get access to regular work and at the same time parking them in unskilled jobs in a planned economy harms everyone, companies, refugees and society as a whole," Audretsch told RND.

Meanwhile, those who argue that putting asylum seekers to work will give them a better public image are playing into a racist atmosphere that existed thirty years ago, "right down to the burning of refugee centers," says Hamado Dipama.

"The discussion now can be compared with what happened here in 1990. We are in exactly the same situation now, where all of society’s problems are blamed on just a small group of people," he said.

"I appeal for this racism against refugees to stop. It has to stop."

That call was echoed by Tareq Alaows, refugee policy spokesperson for Pro Asyl, a network of refugee councils and advocacy groups, who called the current proposals for compulsory work "racist and inhumane", adding: "(They) once against demonstrate a dangerous entry into a right-wing populist debate."

A 'pull factor'?

Opponents of the compulsory work scheme are not restricted to refugees and those on the political left, however. Among its critics are also conservative politicians who want to see fewer asylum seekers in Germany. They are worried that putting asylum seekers to work will enable them to send part of their earnings back to their home countries sooner.

Thomas Karmasin and Martin Sailer from the CSU party, among others, fear that would create another incentive or "pull factor" for migrants to choose Germany as their destination country.

Sailer has also pointed out that it would also make it harder to deport people if they were too well integrated into society through the opportunity to gain employment.

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