tv DW News - Africa Deutsche Welle July 29, 2020 11:30pm-11:45pm CEST
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leads to. somebody different walks of work. some are. oddly troubling or all of them come straight from the word good for a cd or even for the money dealers in the marsh who enjoy come. from the rooms of the room to their final resting place the russians g.w. documentary. the coronavirus pandemic is not only a threat to our health for many it's a threat to their livelihoods and it doesn't matter whether you live in europe in the united states africa or asia people all over the welts are having to adjust to
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a different job market different working hours different works in arias the west case scenario being they're no longer needed now that's a reality for many who have found themselves out of work forced to make do however they can no jobs no prospects our topic today on made believe me here a d w many of us also fear for our jobs and our prospects to some extent i guess it goes with a kind of work we do with being a freelancer but the situation that was taking us to a whole new level this pandemic is putting many millions of jobs at risk worldwide even those that were deemed to be safe my colleague your home agast caught up with people on 4 different continents to find out how they hope to stay afloat in these trying times. if i don't have a job. middle of september i'm going to have to make
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decisions about something that i've been here for 5 years. i don't want to do that i've worked hard work for very large. and i could lose everything. i mean skeered really scared. the fear of losing everything isn't just an american problem it's happening to millions of people around the world. india the fear of unemployment brings with it the fear of starvation. we have no money we've been borrowing from here and there we've been taking moans that's what our family is surviving on. even in wealthy germany people are worried about the future. things will get critical for me in september.
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and then. i'll have to see. we need for people from different parts of the world who haven't earned any money for months one of them is in peru the. economy going into. the school was affected by the pandemic from the very beginning. in the matter in march parents stopped paying the school fees. if. it was shocking because there was no way out of the situation. many people lost their jobs. in peru it's mostly the coastal regions of the capital lima that are affected. there you'll find the most infections and the most deaths with no end in sight the tragedy has paralyzed the country huge parts of the population of lost
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their jobs there were hardly any children outside because everyone under 14 years old is supposed to stay home schools closed in the morning and will remain closed for the rest of the year that includes public and private schools 'd around a 3rd of korean children attend private schools like unnecessary your river school . if. the school is not big. it has a capacity of $200.00 students from the from the. get the income from the school has been enough to feed my family for 38 years. that being our source of income. we make a living from the school. the school principal belongs to peru small middle class but the majority of the people here are poor. over 70 percent work in
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the informal sector with no contract endo health insurance. in india up to 90 percent of people work without any social safety net and it's those people who've been hit the worst by the coronavirus crisis. is a day laborer who usually works as a stonemason from one day to the next he lost his work. we covered long distances to get to work sites sometimes on foot. we had to work nights to a time. whatever work we could get we would do it though we've. just seen used to work in southern india now he's moved back to his home in the north he's one of around 40000000 my dinner and workers who since the pandemic hit have left the big cities and gone home in late march the indian government imposed
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the 1st nationwide lockdown in may he began relaxing the restrictions but infection rates are beginning to rise again in part because most indians are so poor that they can't even afford masks even if he wanted to sing wouldn't be able to return to southern india they were financially strapped and in addition trains are not headed that way and many more people are getting sick now this is why i can't return to gether you because. of the number of infections in the u.s. is also on the rise and the economy is recovering too slowly catherine keels will receive unemployment benefits until the end of july and then she'll have to dip into her savings the insecurity is exhausting and she's worried that things are set to get much worse in washington d.c. where she lives i think we're going back into quarantine and i don't think people are being careful. i think there are people who are going to return to work or
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going to be sent home because businesses are going to have to close or change the way they're operating and not have this much stephanie office karen keels used to manage a doctor's office she has 40 years of experience on the job now she's looking for work online but at age 60 she knows that her chances of finding a new job are not the best still she won't let that stop her. hoping our have a job in a couple of months hopefully in a couple of weeks. hopefully as an office manager and also apply for 3 positions where i'd be able to work from home. in germany under their who've usually works as a freelance tour guide on berlin's museum island since march she's had no work 1st the museums were closed now they're open again but the tourists are staying away.
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she was able to make it through the start of the crisis thanks to 5000 euros in emergency aid from the bridge in city government i think. i do what i can i'm looking at job offers but the way the situation is nothing certain yet that one in germany is so far gotten through the pandemic relatively unscathed infection rates have gone down. unemployment rates have only risen slightly the german government has given the economy massive amounts of financial support. that's why andrea hoof is still taking it all in stride is a valid i'm applying for jobs my savings will last another 2 months i know by that point we'll know whether we're expecting a 2nd wave or not let's see what happens over the next few weeks. if it flew through. and today have moved can rely on germany's functioning health care system the others can't karen keels is expecting another spike in infections in washington
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unless a senior riva is staying home hoping to avoid infection. seeing is out of work in his home village while corona virus infections in indian cities continue to rise for people who represent millions around the world who have lost their jobs in the crisis and who don't know what lies ahead. well one thing is certain no matter where in the world the longer this pandemic lasts the more jobs will be at risk germany has a big advantage its economy is fairly strong and stable and the government has a tool designed to prevent massive layoffs in an economic downturn the so-called short time work model keeps both companies and employees in business let's take a look now at how it works.
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susanna schmidt works in a german chemicals company. because of the coronavirus crisis there is less for her to do so she currently only goes to work 2 days a week and is paid for those days by her boss times are tough so the company could terminate contracts but instead it's signed on to a short time works again which is part of germany's government unemployment insurance system workers can keep their jobs while receiving partial unemployment benefits that costs the state less than paying out full unemployment benefits to workers who've been sacked. the scheme applies if at least 10 percent of the company's workforce have at least 10 percent less to do than usual whatever size the company. for the 3 days a week susanna is not working the short time work scheme pays 60 percent of what
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she would have earned after deductions and with 20 percent paid by her employer she earns 80 percent of her usual salary that should be enough to get by on during this time her health insurance and pension fund contributions are also covered by the government. in april german companies put almost a 3rd of their workforce on short time work more than ever before. during the last major financial and economic crisis in 2000. the 9 millions were also put on short time work the scheme saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. other countries have adopted this german model. the cost of the program installed during the coronavirus crisis an estimated $34000000000.00 euros so far in order to support workers like susanna schmidt the government will go into debt the question now is how much new debt she is willing or able to take home.
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you just can't win seems for every action however well intended there is a price to pay that's even more tragic when people literally go out of their way to get a job like migrant workers all too often they have to put up with appalling conditions and to add insult to injury they also often have to chase after the wages they're owed a scandal also happening here in germany. we've come to a logistics company in northern germany a group of men from ukraine spent 3 months working here as delivery drivers but they say they haven't been fully paid and this still owed 20000 euros. we tried to contact the company management by phone. and. the message is hardly surprising the
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company has filed for bankruptcy. our next stop is the city of nickel paul 3000 kilometers further east in ukraine. this man was one of those delivery drivers who works in germany he wishes to remain anonymous he applied for the job online because he needed the money and was immediately accepted here right in germany on a tourist visa which allowed him to what legally in a seasonal job he still has his employment contract still for the shortlist of worship we were told repeatedly that there would be no problems with pay but our visas were due to run out so we knew we had to go back home. for 2 months we'd only received part of our wages as. futile so we called the company. they assured us we would get our money but in the end they stopped answering the phone and then they
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blocked our numbers by that time it was clear we wouldn't see the money so we went home. to go. back to germany. for the german trade union confederation we play him our interview with the ukrainian driver and show him the contract. he says it's no isolated case major companies what could sub contract his who hire east european seasonal work has that then don't pay them or only partially pay them. because i don't own the company that puts the work out the contract is happy to get the job done cheaply and have a competitive advantage as a result of. a point on the ma the subcontractor that takes the work has a huge advantage because they win the contract and then employ people promising them much more than they can actually pay. and so those workers automatically end up being exploited because the money's just not there at the end of the day the food. the company that initially awarded the contract in this case was online
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retailer amazon and this is the death where the men from ukraine worked employed by this subcontractor they say they work 12 hours a day 6 days a week for an increased net pay of $1400.00 euros a month. and has a look is now trying to help them get that money he's been writing letters to the subcontractor. if necessary the case will go to court. our job is not to fight the legal battle to the end. we just want to give the necessary impetus and empower the people so that they're in a position to fight for their rights so that they have the feeling no it's not right that our wages haven't been paid. we have the same rights as the germans and the domestic work force.
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