--- moominek at aol.com wrote:
> The official unemployment figures:
>
> Number of unemployed in September 08:
> -115.000 to 3.081.000
> decline compared to same month last year:
> -463.000
> unempolyment rate in September:
> -0,2 % to 7,4 %
But official employment statistics are notoriously unreliable due to the fact that people who are actually Hartz IV beneficiaries are still counted as "employed" if they have been shoveled into ABMs or 1-Euro jobs.
What the Hartz reforms have actually effected is a massive army of underemployed working poor who no longer enjoy the same rights and civil liberties as normal citizens as beneficiaries of social transfer payments, and have a legal status not very far from serfdom.
The whole game played with employment/unemployment statistics in this country is a sick fucking joke. A Zizek could have a field day with the bizarre psychopathology involved.