Chemnitz, Germany

Chemnitz – in the former East Germany (GDR) - is the third-largest city in the federal free-state of Saxony after the booming city of Leipzig and the state capital Dresden.

Chemnitz currently is home to about 244,000 inhabitants. After a peak of around 360,000 during the late 1920s, the population started shrinking before growing during the GDR period to over 300,00. Chemnitz was again affected by a sharp population decline after unification. Between 1990 and 2010 the city lost almost a quarter of its residents. The main reasons lay in an older population, low regional birth-rates and emigration because of deindustrialisation and resulting high unemployment. The more favourable economic situation in the west was a strong pull-factor.

10% of the population have a migration background, which is approximately half of the German average of medium and larger cities. In demographic terms, Chemnitz is ‘the oldest’ of all east-German major cities with 28% of inhabitants above 65 years. At the same time, the younger generation has declined from 17% in 1985 to about 10% in 2020 ^[ 1 ] .

At city level, over the next two decades, the numerous older groups will have largely gone, and replacement can reasonably only be expected from in-migration. All indications are that the future will again bring drastic shrinkage across the city.

The physical structure of Chemnitz is characterised by a fractured pattern of neighbourhoods in an open green cityscape which was developed following massive bombing at the end of the Second World War. On vacant ruined space, East German standard housing and industrial structures were erected until 1990, followed by post-socialist market-oriented developments within an car-oriented road network.

The city, which has the legal character of county and municipality, covers about 220 sq. km and is divided into 39 districts with limited administrational and political independence. Although the city is clearly a centre in the state’s regional planning system, the surrounding towns often have stronger circular relations and radial links to further out neighbouring towns than to Chemnitz.

The promotion of diversity and gender matters has been on the agenda of city politics and is reflected in the influence of women in leading positions in city affairs, especially in youth and social welfare administration, and in the department dealing with housing and urban development.

In 2015 the city council approved a Gender Action Plan that was designed in a participatory process with public and civil society stakeholders. The plan includes eight core obligations of the municipality, which include overall family friendliness, municipal support for women-specific projects and equal political opportunities for all genders in societal participation. Special attention is given to gender sensitive urban spatial and social planning and gender awareness in youth work.

Since about 2000 the city has focussed on concentrating on culture as a driver of development in its cultural and economic attraction and empowering residents through low-threshold projects including youth and vulnerable groups. In 2021 the city won an application to become ‘European Capital of Culture 2025‘ with the motto "C the unseen“. The term covers spaces and institutions as well as people, who should be made visible and empowered in a process that actively supports weaker groups and includes a wide variety of initiatives and civil society ^[ 2 ] .

Education in Germany is primarily the responsibility of individual federal states - in this instance, Saxony.

School generally starts after an obligatory pre-school year with a joint primary school of either four or six years, according to what strand of education is chosen. At the beginning of secondary school the system splits up between ‘middle school’, which leads to vocational training, integrated comprehensive school (a hybrid system integrating various strands with switching options) and grammar school (‘Gymnasium’), which guides to academic or other highly qualified professions. The general schooling period across all strands – depending on state –is 12 or 13 years, including a two- to three-year vocational school.

The Saxon education system follows a loose nationwide framework, but common educational standards are increasingly being established via the joint conference of the states’ culture ministers. Further, the Saxon education system has taken a different path than much of the rest of Germany, following the Bavarian model with only two strands and a relatively strict division between basic and vocational education, and academically selective. Even though there is criticism from within the state and some academic circles, who plead for more structural equality in education, Saxony has scores at the top of most league tables for educational attainment ^[ 3 ] .

Chemnitz has 82 schools spread over the city. As a response to the shrinking and ageing population, the number of schools was reduced through demolition and conversion after the mid-1990s by more than a dozen schools. Most older schools have been upgraded according to new tuition and ecological standards and some have been completely replaced with high quality, energy-efficient new buildings. However, there has been critique that the €160 Million new school building programme in Chemnitz between 2018 and 2024, gave too little attention to the out-of-school community use of the buildings.

Contrary to the overall trends, Saxony persistently has one of the highest proportions of students leaving school without a high school certificate (8.5% in contrast to 6.6% at the federal level in 2019). At the same time, the number of students with university degrees is increasing less than in other states.

There is also an increasing gap in educational attainment between urban and rural areas and a lack of qualified teachers on the middle level has been criticised – increasingly university graduates from other fields are invited to become fast track teachers.

The structure of the Saxon school system is as overcomplex and reproducing intergenerational educational inequality, which often coincides with parents’ income inequality. Long term welfare benefit dependency of vulnerable groups and, in particular, a migrant status is seen as negatively affecting the students’ success and opportunities ^[ 4 ] .

By federal law, it is a joint responsibility of employers and schools to prepare students for successful access to an appropriate form of employment. Leaving school with a qualified graduation, about 50% of students enter the two-tier system of apprenticeship ^[ 5 ] , jointly delivered by employers and vocational schools. Others enter further higher education, and others are drop out of education. The ‘dual system’ ^[ 6 ]  is seen as one of fundamentals for the relatively low youth unemployment in Germany.

Besides gaining workplace experience, apprentices are obliged to take part in theoretical training ‘at school’ for part of their time until either 11 years of mandatory schooling are completed, or their apprenticeship has ended. Students without an apprenticeship or a formal job can visit vocational school centres full time, or on application, can be relieved from compulsory education ^[ 7 ] . For the most vulnerable groups of jobseekers, the double demands of school and workplace acts as a hurdle, which cannot easily be overcome. In these cases, compensatory training through special social work is offered. However, as well paid exists in simple service work, vulnerable youth miss out on the opportunity to enter into quality jobs.

In Germany’s political realm, labour is closely linked to social policy, as evidenced in the thematic integration of the federal ‘Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs’. Labour and welfare policy is developed in discussions in a joint arena between employers, trade-unions, and civil society, mediated by the federal ministry.

Since the 2010s labour shortage, a narrow focus on labour markets was replaced with more holistic approaches linking education, gender (including female labour) and increasingly ‘humanising work’ towards a better balance between labour and life.

Officially Germany, with 5.9% of the workforce has the third lowest proportion of people in precarious labour in the EU. Howeveer, many so-called modern labour agreements, e.g. for delivery-services, hospitality work and care, are contracted with independent small entrepreneurs with limited social protection, and should be included. Even though political efforts have been made to reduce the proportion of bogus self-employment schemes, it is estimated that young people with a low educational standard are particularly likely to have this kind of precarious employment.

Since 2005 the number of workplaces has increased in all but one of the federal states. However, the increase was unequally divided between jobs, regions, and age-groups. The most striking increases lay in the service sector, where production increased considerably without much influence on the number of jobs. This is an indication of stronger automatization and digitalisation replacing low-skill roles.

Jobs and apprenticeships on offer in Chemnitz are provided by a large variety of small to large employers, in public and private sectors. Large companies offer job training from academic traineeships to mechanics, through to advanced engineering, and roles in the health and service sectors.

Over the last two decades, there has been a considerable slump in smaller companies offering apprenticeships as the system of company and vocational schooling is a bureaucratic challenge that does not pay off, and there is insecurity in terms of long-term staff needs.

Post-unification unemployment rose fast in Germany between 1991 (8,9%) and 2005 (11.7%) but then fell rapidly as the economy gained pace again. The financial crisis of 2008 only showed up in a relatively small dent of 1% – with hardly a difference between east and west. By 2019 unemployment was down to 2.69 m / 5% (2.07 m in the west and 0.62 m in the east).

Unemployment of young people evolved parallel to overall unemployment, which was at 15.4% in 2002, rising to 18.6% in 2005, then gradually falling to 6.2% in 2019. However, this development was halted for the time being by the corona pandemic: the number of unemployed rose from 2.27 to 2.7 million in 2019. The first to go were the least qualified. Youth unemployment in the same period rose from 6,2% to 7.1%.

While generally the number of unemployed fell after the 2005 labour crisis, the problems of those unemployed or job-seeking for over a year are considerable and some have signed off from job seeking for good, living on benefits.

Until the age of 27 years, livelihood can be covered under the welfare packet for children and young adults, whereas later they fall into the general welfare benefit scheme for adults.

In Chemnitz, unemployment has followed the general trends. In 2020, unemployment was down to a fraction of what it was in 2005 due to a generally growing economy, falling from 17.6% to 7.4%. The effects of long-term crises are difficult to assess because short term public interventions – prolonged short-time work, supported training measures etc. - blur the picture.

The Employment Agency stated that the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the general labour market was "astonishingly small", but long-term unemployment has solidified and finding jobs for school-leavers has become more difficult. For them "the relationship between school-success and finding jobs has become more apparent again".

The reinforcement of subsidised short-term labour (Kurzarbeit) strongly reduced unemployment after 2007 and during the Covid-19 crisis. It has directly helped controlling unemployment, provided an income continuity, and preserved the employers from loss of qualified labour.

A second sector of federal government engagement in regulatory labour policies was the legal minimum wage introduced for the first time in 2015. Starting at 8,50€ and lifted to 12.00 €/h in 2022 it guarantees about 65% of individual and half of the median income, which was seen as the largest step against income inequality and its social fallout for more than half a century.

Youth employment agencies are countering the solidification of unemployment, setting their focus of action along regional and local needs. As intermediaries between the feral labour-agency and municipalities, the work in close cooperation with schools.

Those searching for work or an apprenticeship in Chemnitz are supported by the Federal Employment Agency and the Chambers of Industry and Commerce who coordinate the offers of various industries and employers’ organisations.

School leavers are supported by the school social workers and a joint youth-employment centre that coordinates the provisions of the Jobcentre as a network-oriented one stop-agency to unbureaucratically assist especially vulnerable clients. Tasked with the assistance to all young jobseekers, the agency offers support either at their mid-town offices, in schools, youth-clubs or in house at workplaces of companies looking for employees.

All these institutions, especially the labour agency and the youth welfare organisations, offer information, personal consultancy, and access to youth employment projects at the threshold between welfare assistance and employment.

Powers and responsibilities for housing were devolved to the states in the reform of the federal system in 2006. Support for cross-cutting priorities is provided by the Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building. The lack of affordable housing, problems in precarious neighbourhoods, a backlog in energy-efficient building, and research on innovation in these fields – smart cities - are the main areas of focus of the Ministry.

In joint federal and state programmes, like urban renewal (Städtebauförderung), the federal Ministry coordinates research, knowledge transfer and funds. The Ministry also provides the regulatory framework for building new homes and neighbourhoods. There is also federal engagement in the provision of funds for the states to co-finance access and cost regulated housing (rent and mortgages for social housing).

Saxony, as a state with highly diverse regional housing markets, has tasked the Ministry for Regional Development ^[ 8 ]  with managing housing by creating ‘a framework for market actors’. Saxony’s housing policy is based on market principles and "intervention, only where it is necessary if housing market conditions are in need of correction from a social point of view" ^[ 9 ] .

In principle, the Western integrated urban renewal and social housing strategies of the 1980s were replicated in the East after unification. The historical ‘old housing stock’ was reprivatised and a rent-index system enforced harnessing the rent market. Since then income and needs-tested housing benefits are distributed according to needs and the welfare law.

Over the following two decades, billions of euros were afforded to building and rehabilitation from public and private coffers. This has led to a fundamental improvement of the housing situation and physical urban quality.

Towards the end of the GDR period, the majority of Chemnitz’ housing was in a rundown and environmentally unsound state. Soon after the political change, Chemnitz, as formerly the most important industrial city in the GDR, was particularly hard hit by transformation. Housing policy was mainly focused on renewal.

From 1990 onwards a number of programs dedicated to rehabilitating the 19th and early 20th century neighbourhoods and the GDR panel estates were implemented. Chemnitz’s housing benefited from massive urban renewal support (Städtebauförderung) and urban restructuring (Stadtumbau) programmes. Private landlords were supported through extensive tax-exemption on investments into rental properties ‘in the New States’ ^[ 10 ] , but this led a ‘coincidental’ transfer of property to Western investors, which contributed to the discontent of the local population. On the other hand, public support for rehabilitation changed a lot of existing housing into ‘quasi-social housing’, as income and access control were exerted.

In Chemnitz, rental housing is largely affordable and so most young people are able to leave home between the ages of 18 and 22. Affordability is driven by a surplus of properties, rent controls, and benefits or subsidies for lower income groups.

Recognising that technical improvement did not solve local sociocultural problems, regeneration was complemented from 1999 onwards by the joint federal and state programme of the ‘The Socially Integrated City’ (Soziale Stadt). Both the municipal housing company and larger private companies benefited from this public support.

The map shows the main urban intervention areas in Chemnitz according to the urban development concept SEKo202047 ^[ 11 ] , which largely coincides with ‘socio-economically burdened’ areas. A high proportion of welfare benefit receivers and unemployed older and younger residents coincide with residents with a non-German background, single parent families, and high population density. According to local experts, none of these issues pose a social problem in themselves. However, the sociospatial overlay serves the city as an indicator of ‘areas in need of policy attention’ and as the basis for the rulebook of urban development planning measures. The same overlay also indicates the intersectional quality of issues the neighbourhoods and their residents of all ages are facing.

Vulnerable young people who often are helped into housing by welfare organisations and youth projects are most often accommodated by the municipal housing company. They provide a certain proportion of their stock to such target groups, often in a cared for position, on condition of some supervision.

In some cases, framework contracts are concluded between housing companies and youth-welfare organisations, who act as renters and sublet. The municipal housing company has also handed over complete building blocks with a considerable maintenance backlog to welfare organisations or self-organisations of young people who pay for modernisation and repair from the clients’ housing allowance or other public funds. So far, these types of transferring management to welfare organisations or the users themselves have been successful.

The city provides also special assistance and access to housing to prevent homelessness within their legal responsibility, usually for young people over 17 years of age and refers them to cared-for accommodation and other assistance.

The general EU ambition, as set out by the European Commission in 2015, promote a better relation between government and those governed was encapsulated through a network approach into a web of policies and practices in the ‘Better Regulation Agenda’ ^[ 12 ] . The modes of governance should help citizens by ‘reducing obstacles and bureaucracy through involving citizens, business and stakeholder inclusion, transparency of action, and trust-building in processes of problem management under the participation of young people’.

Social and youth work, due to their specific integrative structure in Chemnitz are seen as an example of good governance and interplay between the public administration and NGOs providing services for children and young people.

The Federal Ministry for Family Affairs has responsibility for the policy areas of ‘family, elderly people, equality, children and youth, and volunteering. Besides formulating general policies, it is engaged in building awareness of the ‘role of mothers, fathers and carers’ in society, to support young people to have a non-violent upbringing and for family poverty prevention. The Ministry has supported policy- and knowledge-networks and co-funds local initiatives but is not involved directly in regional or local initiatives. In Chemnitz, the Ministry co-funds two Kindergartens, and an integrated family centre in a vulnerable neighbourhood.

Youth policy delivery in Germany has a mandatory double structure: The administrational youth departments (Jugendamt) are public municipal authorities. They are supervised by a mandatory local parliamentary body, the youth welfare committee (Jugendhilfeausschuss), which is appointed by local parliament. It includes representatives of the administration, professional experts in youth work and representatives of approved NGOs, youth-judges, and representatives of client self-organisations.

Mandatory youth-services ‘of general interest’ are focussed on the provision of ‘necessary goods and services for a meaningful human existence. These include youth and children welfare services, provision of kindergartens, establishing public schools, basic support for young job seekers and have to be financed through the local authority’s basic budget. Voluntary services and projects are financed according to the municipalities’ availability of funds. They include offers of special importance for vulnerable groups of the young generation within the municipalities’ personal and financial room of manoeuvre.

According to youth representatives in Chemnitz, they are ‘the provisions most flexibly targeted to the needs of young people’, however they can be (partly) cut in financial crises. Cuts were last imposed after the 2007 financial crisis and further cuts may be pending as a consequence of the Covid-19 crisis.

Youth welfare provision in Chemnitz is an integral part of general urban policy. Whereas administering the basic material services follows strict bureaucratic rules, the voluntary services are organised by welfare services bottom-up that have developed since the 1990s. The city of Chemnitz and its collaborating welfare service partners are offering integrated services to young people, their parents/guardians, and employers.

Services for young people are tasked with providing open face-to-face consultancy and assistance ‘to prevent the deterioration of the socioeconomic situation and social position, and to help organising professional help as well as self-help’. The city offers and finances legally prescribed welfare services, mental health-services, and case-clearing for young people. Face-to-face youth services are mainly provided by independent welfare organisations on contract to state or city.

Besides the public administration’s youth service centres, there is funding for:

• 24 recreational facilities for children and young people to provide ‘open spaces for varied and flexible programmes’ in inclusive and open-door activities.
• Child and family centres to support parents and are focused primarily on the needs of the smaller children and parents in the city’s ‘Early Excellence’ approach.
• Work-related youth-work which offers socially disadvantaged or personally restricted young people support options in the transition from school to training or work. The service is delivered by public job agencies in collaboration with companies and school social workers.
• Street work and mobile youth work targeted at those youngsters who cannot be reached by other means and serves as an ‘opener for individual clearance’. Since 2007 three street work projects are funded by the city in various neighbourhoods55 ‘joining vulnerable youth where they are’. The projects reach out to marginalized and stigmatized young people who are ‘threatened by effects of inequality’
• School social work in collaboration with schools is open to all pupils at the interface between education, social work and every-day lives.
• Child and youth protection service which provides emergency services for children and young people for those seeking advice, counselling, and therapy.

Youth welfare planning is a central activity in preparing programmes and projects across all youth services and other parties involved. It builds upon an inventory and monitoring of facilities, services and visions taking into account the needs and interests of young people.

In principle, all mandatory or voluntary youth services can be administered by either the public sector or non-governmental organisations. In Chemnitz, most face-to-face and therapeutical services have been sourced out to initiatives and NGOs because this gives the city government room for targeted strategy and professional autonomy to the agencies delivering the services. NGOs and private partners have proved more flexible in adapting to changing needs of clients than public services.