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I think you have your numbers mixed up. Hartz IV is the name of a reform which led to the creation of Arbeitslosengeld ALG I and ALG II as well as the so-called Grundsicherung. ALG I is unemployment insurance for those who recently lost their jobs, while ALG II are unemployment benefits for the long-time unemployed. Grundsicherung under Hartz IV is assistance for the working poor, meaning that if you earn less (no minimum wage in Germany) than you would get in unemployment benefits, the state makes up for the difference. The vast majority (i.e. 80-90%) of those who get Grundsicherung do so only because they have to support children.

So there are 7% unemployed who get Hartz IV plus another 3% workers (approx 1.3 million) who fall under Hartz IV Grundsicherung, which is ~10%. Plus another 1-1.5% (around half a million) who receive benefits while being retrained.

Which adds up to half your number of 23%, namely around 11.5%.

Marginal employment up to 400€, so-called "minijobs" (jobs that don't fall under social insurance requirements, which makes them popular) can fall under two categories. Either it is real underemployment, but then it is already counted as unemployed under ALG I / II or underemployed under Grundsicherung.

In the other case it is the part-time job of a wife where the husband is the family's main breadwinner or the second job of someone who is already (fully) employed (approx. one third of all minijobs). In these cases it's not counted as un- or underemployment, because most of these employees are not looking for a (better) job.

So adding ALL 400€-jobbers is nonsense, as one third already have a job. A number of others are already receiving pensions and just want some extra spending money. Most of the rest don't want better jobs, as they have other priorities (raising children etc.). But even if you're generous and say that part of the 400€-crowd falls under the underemployment criteria, you're still way off your 23%.

No - HartzIV did away with ALGII and lumped all of them with the rest of the welfare recipients - it was DESIGNED to hide the unemployment rate and shift the burden of payments from the ALV (unemployment insurance) to the SV (Welfare).

Re: the 400€ people: I only counted the ones which only had one such job as thier main source of income. AND - the only reason these jobs are “popular” is because the Government can force someone take take such a job so that they fall off the unemployment roles.

The Germans have ALWAYS used accounting tricks to hide the real numbers and make themselves look better than they truely are - the old trick was to take everyone in government sponsered vocational retraining and remove the from the unemployment roles - even though they were still collecting not only unemployment for up to two years - but the schooling was paid for as well.

I must correct something in my previous post -

you are CORRECT in so far as you refer to ALGI/II - I was continueing under an older definition.

Hartz IV however takes over when ALGII is finished.

My confusion stemed from the fact that even in the common language the two are sometimes mixed up - the old “Arbeitslosenhilfe” was for the long term unemployed and this was “merged” into the Sozialversicherung (Welfare). The old Arbeitslosengeld was split into ALGI & ALGII.