good afternoon everyone for those of you who've been in here in this room for the past hour we just had a very

hot and lively debate on the future of work with the labor ministry and the labor minister Andrea analysis and This session we're going to talk about the future of work as well, but more from a let's say comparative perspective so we are going to look at what's going on in the US what's going on in Germany and

Trying to answer the question how can Germany actually be a leader in the digital age and When you look at this at this debate in Germany you basically find Two strands of debate like on the one side you find those saying that

Uber and all these platforms. They are basically evil and We have to hinder them to Disiminate even further within our economy and then on the other side you have this startup bubble talking about IPOs and why

Europe is not producing the world's next Facebook or Google But I think that basically the more important question we have to ask is how do we basically? implement these new business models that are Developing into our setup of a social market economy, and this is the debate we are going to have now

We're going to have three speakers We're going to have Stephen Hill We're going to have Anna Alex, and we are going to have Anka hustle, and I would like to invite them on the stage so Stephen Anka and Anna would you please come to the stage cool?

Just some brief words of Introduction just take any seats take any seats

Okay, so We have Stephen Stephen just published a book in English. It's called the startup illusion We the internet economy on the room to charge that who in here the setup illusion how the internet economy is ruining our welfare state Stephen was a whole spring fellow at the American Academy here in Berlin last year

He's a political scientist by training is now a political journalist and advisor He's a columnist for the sunless blood for the site And he's a very interesting person to talk to when you're interested in what's actually going on in Silicon Valley What's going in Germany? And how do the two relate to each other and what can two sides so to say learn from each other?

then we have Anka hustle Anka hustle is a professor of public policy at the head of school of governance here in Germany and the she's the Academic director of VSE which is an independent think tank Funded by the hands back lash tifton and we have Anna Alex

She's the founder and CEO of outfittery outfittery is a personal shopping platform for man, right she was part of the rocket internet ecosystem so to say and My idea is that we're going to do it like this we're going to have a very brief introduction by Steven

Laying out what his book. It's this book what this book is basically about and then we're going to have a response by Anka and by Anna and then I come up with a couple of comments and a couple of questions from my side and then would like I would like to open it up to the floor and We're going to have a debate all of us together

So the question is how can Germany be a leader in the digital age and Steven? How can Germany be a leader? Okay, can you hear me? All right. We've been given specific instructions on how to hold the microphone. So How could Germany be a digital leader? Well, you know, I was

The book came out of being here in Germany for about half year half of the year last year and talked to many many People and I kept hearing, you know, where the German Facebook's the German apples and googles You know Germany needs to be more innovative Germany needs to be more like Silicon Valley and as someone who lives in Silicon Valley

My reaction was kind of Wow. Are you sure about that? And I realized that not everybody really knows What the fullness of Silicon Valley is the pros and cons. There's certainly some good things There are a lot of downsides as well. So You know, I mean for example seven out of ten startups in Silicon Valley fail nine out of ten never make any profit

There's just a lot of money. It's basically a casino Where a lot of money is being thrown around to find that Facebook or that that? Uber or whatever. Well, actually Uber's isn't profitable uber lost three billion dollars last year trying to find that that rare company that actually makes it through and

Can every place can Germany really afford to have such an imprecise? Policy of promoting business development where seven out of ten are failing I'm not sure that's the best use so I go into that in my book quite a lot when I talk about well What what does Germany have that would really build on its strengths?

And one of the things that Germany has is quite remarkable and I think is underappreciated sometimes because you know as Germans you Just like Americans. We don't appreciate what we have. That is good is the middle stone the middle stone You know, it actually creates 60% of the jobs in my middle stone. I hope you can understand my terrible German middle stone

It's the small and medium enterprises in Germany, so there's millions of them they create 60% of the jobs they they 56% of the economic output a huge amount of the export industry of Germany and this trade surpluses from the middle stone and and so, you know, but yet the middle stone is Charlotte challenged because

This digital era is coming and how do they upgrade? How do they innovate? Well, is there a way to create a hybrid between the startup world and the middle stone The cultures are actually too quite different in certain ways But I believe that's possible and I got in my book I go into some of what I think needs how that could occur

And part of that is because you know, it can Germany have Become like Silicon Valley. No, it really cannot and Germany really needs to find its own path its own way in that regard It can have a vibrant startup community Berlin has surpassed London and Paris and Stockholm and others as the leading

Startup city in in Germany in in Europe and yet that's just the beginning There's not enough middle stage funding There's a lot of startup funding including from the government but not a lot of middle stage funding for these startups but in addition the reason why seven out of ten Silicon Valley startups fails because At a certain point you realize that there's just no customers that care enough about this product or service being produced at the price point

You have to produce it to be profitable and you see that same thing in Germany A lot of companies failing because a lack of good ideas It's hard to find that big idea that scales and becomes big and becomes important so it creating this hybridization between the startup world and

and The and the middle stone What I call is you'll appreciate this on a rocket middle stone How to create a hybrid between something like rocket internet, which is good at execution good at scaling Not so good at innovation and rocket internet creates, you know copycats of Amazon and then

Scales them in different places around the world and sells it back to Amazon and makes their money in a hundred days And they move on this is not exactly innovation new product new service, but it is execution. It is scaling. That's what The the middle stone is good at as well. So I think this kind of merger could be good

But that's not what I want to talk to you about What I want to talk about the other thing that was surprising In looking at Germany versus the United States because I'd hear again a lot of people say to me Oh, yeah, the things like digital economy uber Airbnb. Yeah, that's happening here a little bit but it's not happening as much as in the United States and

The more I looked into that I actually found not only is it not true but that government Statisticians and the way you track these things is actually not Doesn't appear to be as accurate as you as you think and that it's actually happening more than you realize I I'll say at the outset that if there's one main message in my book, it's that

Germany needs to figure out and could even play a Leadership role in the world and figuring out how do you make part-time jobs into good jobs? That's really the goal that we have now because if you look at the trend in labor markets whether it's the United States Europe

Germany what we see is in the 2008 2009 collapse in the 2010 eurozone crisis we lost a lot of the permanent full-time jobs in fact Germany has fewer permanent full-time jobs as a percentage of the Work the number of jobs in Germany today than it had in 2000

Germany has been better than some of the other countries in Europe in the United States in creating some middle-wage jobs But still not nearly enough the the hit against the jobs has come in the middle-wage jobs But with even within Germany those middle-wage jobs are more part-time temp jobs solo self-employed

You know Subcontracting work for track if you can understand my German cut types of jobs This is the trend in the labor markets and yet the policies seem to be designed around poor permanent full-time jobs the vice book and other things that are being put out there and so

For more and more workers. They are Dealing with you know, they don't have enough work now some workers like the flexibility But unfortunately, they also are going to need security I mean, it's kind of interesting when you're young you're 25 26 the flexibility seems great You have enough money to for your rent you have you have enough

You know to go to the coffee shop you have enough to have some beers at night with your mates All these sorts of things but as you get into your 30s and you get older you want more income you want more? Security stability. I mean some people tried to say that the you know The Millennials as they're called or some new post capitalist generation that are you know, they're they're they're cool with having

flexibility and this type of digital Economy and you know going from job to job Well, you know you could describe every young generation in the post-world war two era that way The reality is as you get older you want more stability more security more income But the jobs that are going to provide that are disappearing

That's the that's the challenge and what's there being placed with are these precarious jobs part-time temp contract jobs so self-employed So The question to me is how do you take those jobs and turn them into good jobs? Because you know the the the post-world war two social contract whether it's in the United States, Germany

wherever is predicated around a type of worker who has a single employer and Had you know got their their wage their their hours their their job security and their social security benefits through that employer That's what's disappearing and I don't see it coming back

You know We haven't even really talked about the impact of automation of robots and all these sorts of things and how that's coming faster That's going to have even greater impact. So how do you Make it so that you know, more and more workers are working for multiple employers today. Not one employer and

Yet by doing that they don't have the social security and some of the the labor protections that we used to have with The old social contract, how do we make it possible for them to have both? flexibility and Security, that's the challenge So what I've proposed in this book is the creation of what I call a portable universal

Safety net which is what we call it here in the United States or Social Security Whatever you want to call it welfare system and what that means is that every worker would have assigned to her or him an individual security account and Every business that hires that worker would pay something into this account A certain amount above the wage that would be prorated to the number of hours that that worker works for that business

So let's say a worker works 10 hours a week for a certain business that business would pay About a quarter of what a full-time 40-hour a week worker would get from a regularly employed Full-time job and if that worker had two employers that gave them each 10 hours a week

They would get 25% of that need from each one of them if they got five hours They would get a prorated amount and the amount isn't that great, you know works out to about two to three euros More per hour and that would allow that worker to have health care. You have the employers half of health care They still have to pay their half the employers half of pension

You know injured worker compensation a lot of the workers working in these flexible precarious Of freelance jobs don't have any kind of access to injured worker compensation all these sorts of things so it would basically allow these workers to work for multiple businesses and still preserve the security to go with the flexibility and

Here's the other thing is right now, you know for businesses Let's say I'm in business and you're in business and you're in business We're all competing against each other and you're hiring freelancers and contractors and I'm hiring regularly employed full-time workers You're saving about 20 to 25 percent on your labor costs compared to me that puts pressure on me to do what you're doing

It's what I call the steroids of of the economy I mean, it's like, you know The Tour de France as much as a normal bicyclists are taking steroids and doing the juice Then those who aren't doing it feel the pressure. Well, I guess I have to do it as well to compete Well by making it so that every employer is going to have to pay for that Social Security

Regardless of how that worker works it takes away that incentive to hire the part-timer to begin with the employer might figure well Instead of hiring a two or three part-timers I'll just hire one person full-time because I can build a better relationship because it's not going to save me anything in labor costs

so These are the types of things I go into my book. I'm just gonna wrap up by saying that I think that You know, I mean the United States let's face it. We elected Donald Trump, right? So in many ways the leadership on these sorts of issues even though the United States is suffering from them as much and in some cases worse

It's not going to come from the United States it's going to come from places like Germany and there's reason for Germany to do it because you know, when you look at the Germany actually has about 50% more Part-time and temp workers as a percentage of your labor force that we have in the United States You have two to three times more workers making minimum wage than we have here in the United States

so it's not just a question is that you know, that's neoliberal America and And you know, Germany isn't like that as I kept hearing more and more In fact Germany is more like this than you realize and you're not counting it accurately for reasons I go into in my book Having to do with a household survey and all these sorts of things that I can go into during Q&A if there's

Interest in that kind of nitty-gritty detail, but just know that you're not Counting these things one study found that that there's actually 90% more of These so-called independent workers in Germany than what official government sources say 90% more so we're entering this new world of labor digital economy and we really have to figure out the way forward to preserve

You know have good part-time jobs as well as good full-time jobs to create both Flexibility as well as security. Thank you. Thank You Steven Okay, in in Steven's book they are like two two major arguments what one is being one one is that innovativeness is not really

Germany's problem They're like a couple of things to work on but that's basically doable And then the second argument is that the gig economy is already here in Germany We just don't see it in numbers and perhaps as a social scientist. You can comment on this. This is like actually the case

but because the gig economy is already here and Germany is becoming a freelance nation and We have to adapt our system of Social Security and welfare and labor market regulation to this kind of new reality We have to let's say softly update our German model. So what do you have to say?

so as you Have already discovered this is a very complex book because it ranges from the Silicon Valley and the way the gig economy works To the German low-wage economy and there's not a obvious connection And I think we should make this obvious connection because the the way it's set up this book and it's a really interesting book The way it's set up is to say that Silicon Valley and the gig economy

Produces a low-wage economy in Silicon Valley in California, and that makes it unsustainable So we do see a lot of social problems. We see low wages homelessness We see all kinds of social problems in California as a result of the economy and that is a result because you have a winner-takes-all economy

you have some people very few people who get very rich who drive up prices and you have a lot of people who work for Very low wages and who cannot afford the rent that is the the argument and then he moves on to Comparing that to Germany and he sees the German economy works very differently and that is where the middle shunt comes in

It says there's a lot of innovation in the middle shunt and the middle shunt is the backbone of the German economy But at the same time we have the same social phenomena if we look at it socially if we compare labor markets California to Germany if we compare the low-wage economy social problems We see that we have similar figures and similar numbers when it comes to social problems and then there's the question

Why is that if we don't have the gig economy? Why do we have a similar degree of of low wages and a low-wage economy? So that is what I take from the book and that makes it interesting because you know You do have very two very different economies, but you have similarities when it comes to low wages For me when I look at it and I share a lot of the analysis which is made there

I share a lot of the assumptions. I wouldn't say that the gig economy has arrived to Germany in a very similar way I think a very different gig economy a part of the gig economy has arrived to Germany and the other part Which is the reason for low wages and social problems have nothing to do with the gig economy

The reason why Germany has a lot of social problems and a big low-wage sector Which is you know above average in the EU and which is in to some extent bigger than in the United States It's nothing to do with technology and it's nothing to do with the gig economy But it is to do with policies and policies which were enacted about 15 years ago when the labor market was

Deregulated when a lot of different ways of hiring people were introduced into the economy But that has very little to do with the gig economy and technology one aspect I would like to make now on this relationship is really that I would like to see The causality the other way around because as Stephen says, you know

Look at the gig economy and look at the many problems it creates I would say look at the low-wage economy and look at the social problems We have in the economy and look at all the problems that will create for us coping with Technology and for us coping with digitalization I would say that the main problem which we have is that we now have already a polarized

Labor market and this polarization which has to do with wages But also with skills makes it increasingly difficult for us to cope with digital Digitalization and if we want to benefit from it We have to make sure that we have to stop Polarization of skills because we need well-trained people and we need well-paid people who can deal with technology

Thanks Anna Stephen already addressed the the rocket way to run companies Is there also a rocket way to envision society?

Because I'm just wondering right you're a founder of an internet company, right of a Company delivering clothing to young men ordering this clothing wire basically apps on their smartphones So it's not necessarily obvious. Where's the link to? How do you organize a welfare state? So do you think about these issues? Do you think there is some kind of responsibility?

Of how you're running this business models of how the startup ecosystem in Germany is Developing with regards to where do we stand as a society when it comes to labor and social issues? So what is your role on this panel? That's my question. Oh, that's a good question to me

I mean you invited me on this panel and I see myself actually being more the representative of the startup world and the business side of things here And maybe maybe a few things on this. I mean, I think rocket in the u.s. Is Seen very negatively in a sense of just producing copycats and I mean, I'm not working for rocket anymore

I used to work there for two years and I need to say that it Was a very good school for me to go through this actually and learning the execution side of things but there was as well something that I was actually missing and that's why I

Then decided to found my own company not within the rocket ecosystem But to do it completely on my on my on my own together with my co-founder And the thing that was missing was a certain like culture working culture that I want to see in my own

own company and I mean by now outfittery is five years old we have 300 employees and of course this is well a big responsibility that I feel and that I have for my team and and for my business and that I Take very very serious

so I I do think it's it's so you can you can learn a lot from working in like different Environments and I took a lot from my working experience, but from rocket But I think so for me the way was to really combine this with with my own view on the world and my own

View on culture and and and working responsibility that I have for my team Yeah, do you think the the way to go forward Steven is proposing so kind of to combine the best of two worlds, right? So the German mittelstand when it comes to work practices what you've just been talking about with the innovativeness

Dynamism of the startup world, right? Do you think there's a there's a way to combine the two and is this the way to go forward for Germany? I Mean I I from my perspective must say I have high respect Front of the mittelstand and in front of someone like who's who's running a business that might be a hundred years old and Like founded by the grandfathers and so on and so forth and we're now

without surgery at a size that we get frequently asked are you mittelstand now and Every time I get this question I say, oh my god. No, we are not and the reason why

Yeah in a hundred years, yeah, we might be But but but the reason why I don't see us as a mittelstand and I don't want to be mittelstand is that I think It's it's it's a question of mindset actually that is dividing the startups from the mittelstand and the the mittelstand is

is thinking about how to Preserve the things that has been founded in the past by their grandfathers Versus the mindset of the startup is how to disrupt how to innovate and how to like drastically think different Than than our our fathers and forefathers

So and this is for me the big difference it's not in in number of employees which is defining the the mittelstand versus starter person it's a question of mindset and To be honest if we can really combine Two mindsets within one company, I'm skeptical. Yeah

Okay, you've you've been talking about low quality jobs and high quality jobs and companies like Ennis For example, or when you talk to Laura is no love care.com right like the big company Who's also in Germany providing also kind of caring services at home? She's basically arguing that we are going to produce the high quality jobs of the future

Right and you as a labor market and social policy expert Do you think there's anything to this argument? What that they're done up produces high that these kind of companies are going to produce the high quality jobs of the future Yes, why not? I mean that there's no I don't think there's any reason why a startup company or

You know a tech company shouldn't produce high quality jobs. I would expect them to produce high quality jobs I don't think that is really because the title of Steven's book is that startups are generally ruining the welfare state Well, the startups are you know, okay, so now we're talking about radical innovation I think that is the aspect if you have radical innovation and if you have business models of companies

That produce an alternative to existing businesses and can drive out other businesses out You know from the market then obviously you eradicate a number of jobs So if uber comes to Germany and is successful here

It will have an impact on on taxi and and you know transport businesses and then you get a radical innovation Because you have a completely new business model, which you used to have transport services and there you have it You know you have on the one that you create jobs, but also you destruct jobs But whether these new jobs are better than the old jobs or worse that it depends entirely on the line of business

You're in and it depends entirely on what you employ people for I don't know You know what your staff does but I can imagine it is not just you know low quality or unskilled labor and it is rather high quality because you have to and you know, I Actually do not know what your stuff just so I really don't know but there's no assumption, you know

There's no pre assumption that startups lead to bad or worse jobs. Yeah, so you would call for a differentiation of the debate Right to stop kind of the blunt, you know startup bashing. Yeah, Steven Let me just explain a little bit about how this title came about which I didn't pick the publisher did but here's here's

What some of the danger is? There's a company based in Silicon Valley called up work They have 250 regular employees and they use technology to oversee 10 million freelancers all over the world and those freelancers are doing things like computer programmers software designers

Translators graphic designers, there are architects. There are engineers. I mean, there's a huge number of occupations and industries on this platform looking for work and You know, they it's basically an online labor auction You can go there to hire someone and they bid on the job and you can see the bids going lower and lower

You'll see a German worker on there saying I'd like to make 60 euros an hour for this job You can see a US worker saying I'd like to make $70 an hour for this job And then there's workers from Thailand India Philippines saying I'll take two euros an hour for this job and those workers are highly trained They have access to technology and companies like outfittery and whoever it is can hire them wherever they are

And they produce the product they upload it to Dropbox They email it by on the internet with however, they want to deliver the product, you know It used to be to outsource jobs. You had to take you had to move a plant to another country and that was expensive So it was a barrier to doing that now You can outsource jobs just by having a website

You can you can and that's what's happening 10 million freelancers on this platform of up work now. I asked some of the German Researchers and you know government officials and others how many German workers are on the platform up work? They said I don't know. We don't know. We have no idea. We're not counting them and

So, you know took me about 20 minutes to go on the up work website use some filters and find out there's about 18,800 German workers on this one platform. It took me 20 minutes the fact that German Researchers don't know that and didn't do that 20-minute job shows you that it they don't think it's important

there's no emphasis on it and You know, so they just didn't bother that's just one platform and there are dozens of these platforms How many of these workers are there because you know If they're being hired by an employer in the United States or in India or Russia or wherever You can get be sure that that employer is not telling the German government

Hey, I hired this German and they made five thousand euros last year working for me They're not telling the German government about this the worker probably isn't either alright and So the government is not really counting these workers I mean, it's not that they don't know how they're just literally not even trying and

Yet there is some organizations that are trying those are the labor unions Iggy Mattel Verde they're trying to count these workers and Some of the studies that have been done estimate that there's about a million to two million of these sorts of click workers as They're called in Germany So just using conservative numbers if there is you know, one and a half million of these workers

That's about four billion euros in income That's not being tracked It's not being taxed for income purposes. That's about six hundred and seventy million euros That's not going into the health care fund Just using conservative numbers So this is serious money And this is just you know It's we're only at the beginning of what these technologies are going to do how these companies are going to be hiring workers to replace

Permanent full-time workers. We're already seeing those trends in the labor markets fewer permanent full-time jobs today the newer two in 2000 more part-time temporary work You know solo self-employed all these sorts of things. So If enough workers are working this way and you're not getting the revenue that's going to undermine the taxes you need for health care for

Transportation for education for all the social needs that exist here in Germany And the fact that they're not being counted and as I mentioned even for one the ways they are counting Other studies because the way the German system works and the US system too is use a household survey

Someone literally calls up people and says, you know, what kind of how do you work? Do you have one job two jobs, but they only stop at two jobs They don't ask you have third and fourth jobs and they don't ask very much about the second job They're still using the assumption of permanent full-time jobs The old post-world war two model to get that information about the first job

But there's a lot of evidence that more workers are working this way and they don't self-report accurately They don't necessarily tell you that they have a third and fourth job unless you really get that information out of them And so other independent researchers that have been tracking Germany and the US and other places are finding that the number of independent workers

That are working separate from this permanent full-time core employment is in Germany 90% higher than what official Government sources say so, you know, there's there's a numbers game going on here Do we really do we have the methodology to count the ways that people are working on could do you think we do? I'm curious

On the methodology You know that there is more research on counting people who work on platform on click workers crowd workers and as you mentioned there You know efforts to recruit these workers to give them a platform to unionize them, etc I don't think that they that people underestimate the phenomenon. I really don't think so

I think there's an awareness of that and there's monitoring going on on you know, how do they develop? What is the impact? You know, how many people are there and they're also policy You know a proposal already if you read the vice book by the government They deal with these issues and they deal with you know, how should we ensure freelancers? What kind of pension insurance should they have what kind of access to health insurance, etc?

I so in in that sense, I know I don't think that you know that there's a serious Underestimation of the problem going on. I think it is, you know, it has come to Germany later than the US So this is a recent phenomenon and people now start looking into it and you know

Research is more recent than in other places, but it's not that you know people go, you know are blind to the phenomenon here I wouldn't say that at all. The Question as you said is you know, how important do we say this phenomenon is if we have you know? Two million freelance workers who are self-employed and do not have any employees themselves

So not business people but freelancers So in these two million people some of them might be insured through their spouses through their families have other ways of insurance Etc. So some of them really are out in the open, you know, they are underinsured We know they will you know, probably will not make a living in the long run

They will probably end up as you know, poor freelancers They are now poor and they you know in ten years time if they're still freelance that they will still be freelancers And they there will be old age poverty coming from that and then the question is, you know These maybe it's maybe it's one million people. Yeah, so do we design do we need to?

Reform our insurance system to take care of these one million people. I would say yes Yeah, and there's a discussion on about this. There is a discussion. How can we integrate people into pension insurance? Of course we could but we also know that if they were integrated as everyone else the insurance Contributions would be so high that it would deter people to declare their work

you know, we know that we drive people out of declaring their work because Health insurance is incredibly expensive and pension insurance is incredibly expensive. So we need to lower contributions How can we do that? Can we ask the government to step in? Can we ask the government to make contributions as they do all businesses? Can we tax businesses accordingly?

There's a discussion among platforms. They are platform Companies now saying we want to be taxed because we want to give insurances for our freelancers But at the moment we cannot do so because if we do so, you know Our competitors will drive us out of the market because they you know, they don't pay insurances

So I think this is an ongoing policy debate But I wouldn't be as pessimistic and as negative as you that we will not find the answers for that Let's I don't think I'm negative. I think that are pessimistic. I think you will but The trends are are going in a different direction. I mean if you look at the vice book, it's predicated for the most part on

Full-time jobs and yet there are a few permanent full-time jobs at Germany now than it was in 2000 So let's let's leave the technical argument here. I would like to open up to three you had to two rounds of Questions, please do ask questions. Please be brief. Please feel free to address

people on the stage And let's do questions in rounds of three. So two rounds of three questions Right, so, please raise your hands there people with microphones in the middle and on the left side Raise your hands if you have any questions and then come to me. Okay or to my colleague So, please go there

Please do approach the people holding the microphone. Okay So thank you very much for the interesting speech I have a question because I agree with this a hassle and I disagree with mr Hill a bit because you described a lot of major economic trends in Germany and I would fully agree to say that when we

look at the Technical labor market then we see those trends strengthening so more and more freelancers But but the way you described it gave me the impression that you described the major economic trends on the labor market in Germany, and therefore I actually fully have to disagree because

We have a lot of part-time jobs in Germany But that is mainly a female probe problem so the structures we have in Germany lead to the consequence that 60% of the people working in part-time are women and not men and We also have at the moment 1.1 million jobs who cannot be filled

So we have a huge demand for people working and we also have a law in Germany that Tries to prohibit freelance workers because you said that That if you would have a company you would then just employ freelance people so it would be cheaper for you because you're then then

you would save costs Wage costs which is not true because we have a law that prohibits you to have so-called Shines option is quiet. So these are all things that are that are Very that makes the the view on how Germany and the labor market works very differently from the point of view you describe

So my question is first Was your was just description only based on the technical labor market or the well the digital labor market and Second of all, we talked a lot about labor policy But I think in order to strengthen the digital economy their labor policies only just one way and there are many other keys

We need to start. So what are your ideas on different topics than labor market policy? Okay, let's let's take a second question Yeah Thank you. My name is Cyrus one one thing I realized is that in services, which is about two-third of our in Let's say labor

community or labor shift Digital digitalization is starting some trends like scan and go like you go into a Supermarket and then you score on scan on your own your shop items and then you go to a Electronical cashier and he's making all the

Let's say buyout or shopping for you And there's only one person who's guiding you or two persons or three persons and the other 24 were at the beginning there They are gone. Perhaps we're inside of the shop in the supermarket, but normally they wouldn't be there after a while

So what is happening with these people? Okay, who wants to start do you know just quickly the first question the part that stuck out to me was about Women in the labor force and certainly you're right women and young people are more impacted by these trends

And I was looking at the economy as a whole not just the digital economy The numbers are from the the German economy as a whole I don't see that the fact that it's happening to women should be any reason to somehow I mean it seemed to be you were suggesting that it's not as big a deal because it's happening to women and and maybe that Wasn't your attention, but that's what kind of what I was hearing and in fact to me

What you said was more of an argument for why? Germany should have something like a portable safety net so that all these women who are working in these part-time jobs Maybe some of them have access to health care through their husband But is that really the basis you want to? Continue that women with part-time jobs only get access to this safety net and support system through their husband

I think that what you want to have is something like Here's the funny part. I get to try out my German Kunstler social casa. Those I mean Thank you what he said You know for freelancers for for people who are journalists and artists and musicians you have that

And also there's a certain classification of home workers that have access to the employers paying a certain amount Into for these workers to have a social security net I'm saying we should have a car as car for all That that that's what Germany should look into is car as car for all to make sure that no worker Gets put into a precarious situation whatever their situation is. Okay, I

completely agree on the cars car but I think the the problem is is when you talk about full-time and part-time employment and when you say Part-time employment is the problem we had for a very long time. We had a very strong focus Germany is a conservative country and in particular the role of women on the labor market is is often shaped by very conservative views

But we used to have a system where it was clear that you know You had the full-time working man and the part-time working woman and and this was for a very long time, you know You know our conservative system, so we we don't do not really see that as a great role model

We want people to have jobs that they can live of these jobs But where the point where where I would disagree is to say, you know And therefore we regard part-time jobs as problematic part-time jobs are problematic if you have them for The whole length of your life and if they do not produce the income that you can live of these jobs

Yeah But to say that everyone needs to work full-time We'll go and work full-time and have full-time wages is not the answer because it is really it Stresses our societies if we say, you know We have a role model of society where everyone works full-time from the age of 21 to the age of

67 or something that would not be the ideal a society which we are aspiring to But what we need is to have a much more flexible perspective on work that people, you know You work part-time you work full-time and you move from one stage to the other depending on your living arrangements, but During the entire time you need to have an insurance system that provides you with some benefits that it makes clear

You know once you retire you have a pension that you can live off and while you are at work You're insured in a way either through unemployment and health insurance That you do not run the risk to really go bankrupt if something happens

I think that is the kind of model we need and the gig economy and the platform economy is only one Part of it and it is a small part of this this bigger picture. Yes I agree completely even traditional economy You have a lot of part-time and temporary jobs and the goal shouldn't be to turn those into full-time jobs Because as I said the full-time jobs are disappearing and I don't see that they're going to come back

The goal should be to figure out how to make those part-time and temporary jobs into good jobs where they're fully supported You know let them have the flexibility and the security both instead of one or the other which is how it is For many workers now and by doing that you really will unleash the you know the genius of German workers

They won't be stuck in a full-time job They don't like because that provides a you know retirement and security that they want and if they go to a freelancer job They won't have it. They'll be free to go to where they need to and and really you know fulfill their potential Let's bring and bring Anna and again because the lady to the left she asked she's quite quite obviously she stated that

The question we're talking about is obviously about labor and social issues, but also about other other issues, right? So so what other issues is it about and then bring it back to labor and social issues? And what's interesting in German is that you have some kind of basic agreement between let's say the capital and the labor side That it's in the common interest of the society to have high quality jobs, right?

And you're saying that in your business model There is part of the startup world which is interested in high quality jobs And then as I said, we have to differentiate what they have some kind of startup business models that are based of based on Churning high quality jobs into low quality jobs, and then there's business models like yours

So do we actually need some kind of let's say social movement within the startup? scene saying that we are actually standing in for this kind of model of a society which is based upon high quality jobs and Shouldn't these startups so to say distance themselves more from those

Actually employing a model which is based upon low quality jobs But first about the labor and and not labor and social issues Okay So I actually agree with anchors that part-time jobs is not the problem but rather the solution and I must say like from our Side, for example We have quite some workers who working part-time to at some at some point in their career have the wish to

Have one or two days off per week and doing other things taking care either of their children or doing some more Creative things or things that they they always wanted to do and we are completely open for all kind of lecture Flexible working models and I think like coming back as well to the man-woman question and while there are so many

women among the part Time jobs or is is actually I think what what needs to change and what is actually it's rather our problem is That at least in Germany, I don't know how it is in the ass It is actually not possible to be part-time and still be a leader

so still lead a team yeah, and This is something that we need to rethink Completely in society because I actually think that part-time workers can be leading a team perfectly So just because they are not there all the time. They need to build up a great team behind them

They need to be very precise in what they want. They need to have a very motivated team and so on and so forth So great circumstance actually to being a good leader and still working part-time But this is very very rare and I think we we need to see this

Coming actually over the next years to solstice and to as well Solve the the female man Ratio and then their topic. Yeah. I Do you think this could be some kind of a stunt art for tire so so to say that the USP of

Germany which could be a place where you can actually combine Work life balance all this kind of models. You've just been talking about with a very dynamic flourishing innovative Technology based ecosystem. So could this be like what makes Germany special as opposed to the yes, for example

You mean the the working working term arrangement Oh, yeah Coming to Germany starting a startup here or starting to work for a startup in Germany This will mean that you can have both right? You can have the Scandinavian way of living and the Silicon Valley style of innovativeness and dynamism, okay between between Scandinavia and Silicon Valley, you know, Germany is a third

Third model and the third model is actually conservative If you say Scandinavian Scandinavian is a social democratic way of life and then you have the anglo-saxon way of life But you know, I wouldn't be too over optimistic about You know the part-time full-time men women situation because it is an expression of a conservative lifestyle

And we still do have a you know, conservative traditional role for women who work part-time So I'm not absolutely, you know over enthusiastic about it But I would agree that when we want to achieve gender equality We need to be much more flexible in the way we work and we need to be much more flexible and open towards

You know part-time Leadership and part-time roles which can achieve go up to the top I completely agree with that and we need to be more flexible about that To the question is that a you know, do we have you know something to offer here I think what we do have to what what we can offer is actually a

Better working time arrangement in you know, we have one of the lowest Working hours per year, you know, Germany is if you look at the statistics of the OECD, you know Working hours in Germany are relatively short and that is not just to do with part-time, but it is also full-time

Workers work relatively shorter working hours, you know in in many areas and that by definition you could say You know that enables much more work-life balance then if you have live in a society where working hours are extremely long and that Often has to do with the gig economy often has to do with freelancing etc where you find overly long

Working hours. So the picture would be mixed. I would say yeah, let's take the question over here Hello, my name is Andrea Schneider. I'm Lawyer and I'm working on I'm a PhD candidate and I'm working on legal

standards for crowd work and thank you so much for your discussion and My question is so in Germany. We have a strong connection between Social security and employees. It's strongly connected to this status So is it something we can hold for the future? And if not, what is the way of getting things done?

It's it is Changing the terms of who is an employee or changing the terms of what is Social Security for the future? That's a very good question And we have a similar debates in the United States about there's discussion about changing the definition of what is an employee

Because it once you're defined that way a whole bunch of legal ramifications kick into effect and There's a talk in the United States about creating a third category of employee because we have regular employees We have independent contractors and which is like your solo self-employed and that is talk of creating a third carry called dependent Contractors, I'm not a big fan of this approach because what usually happens is like for uber

there's lawsuits against them because The drivers say we're actually your employee uber says no your your your contractors. You're the CEO of your own driving business and so they aren't responsible for any of the Social Security and labor protection is nothing and

So you could create another category But then the lawyers for uber just go to work in finding the loopholes in the new category my approach is more Let's create As I said good jobs out of part-time jobs have this have all types of jobs no matter How are you working if you're an uber driver uber still is responsible as is the driver?

For some degree of your Social Security costs every business would have to be responsible for any employee They hire no matter how many hours What the conditions are and by doing that you get past the loopholes you get past the lawyers Because no one is out of the system. There's no in and out. There's no labor market insiders labor market outsiders

Everybody is covered to some extent that to me is the better way and the way for the future as we get more Into the digital economy and more into automation algorithms robots things that are going to replacing humans We have to be really clear in Covering the people that do have jobs so that they aren't even more labor market outsiders than they are now

And I think that's a real danger Anna Anna. Do you think this is feasible? So I have to have some kind of like pooled contributions So you're going to have freelance work, but you're going to have pooled contributions

hard for me to say I mean I'm So in a certain point I'm missing kind of in this whole discussion actually two views on this whole situation And the one is the view of the customer and the other one is the view of the employer who really wants to be flexible and who really maybe does not want to work full-time and who wants to have have a life and we see so

so many people who so highly value the flexibility that that that we have that it's actually not like Coming from like the evil companies who are not offering full-time secure jobs anymore But it's more what's requested from many many people today to have the flexibility to move around to

Be free to move to other cities and and so on and so forth. So I mean, of course as a company I'm very willing to take responsibilities for the people who are working You know in our company, but I think you need to as well like not look from it so much from this

Past world but really think what what the workers want today or many of them. So I think that's what What you know, that's what I'm saying is Creating a system where those workers can still be part-time Still have the flexibility go to another part of the country work for another employer if they want

But by doing that they're not missing out on Social Security which so many of the workers I mean how many of you you have 300 employees? How many of them are regularly employed workers? How many of them are freelancers? What percentage roughly or is that top trade secret? You can't tell us. No, it's not so I mean

So if out of the 300 people that we employ 150 hours a stylist so that are the ones who are styling our customers and putting together outfits for our customers and and they are all fixed employed with Our company because we want to keep them long term in the company and we want to offer them a good and and and

Job actually, so the other 150 are that most of so the others are just from the other departments and most of them are fixed employees, so we only have a handful of freelancers currently most of them in IT and Most of the freelancers that are working for us in IT. We would love to hire On a fixed contract, but they say oh well

No, I I very much appreciate to be actually that flexible and maybe in six months. I will move to Spain. Who knows so so With so few of them that are freelancers like that if there was a requirement that you as the employer, okay You still have to pay something into this This freelancers Social Security, then it wouldn't be a big cost to you. It's something that could be doable. Yeah, absolutely

Final question to to anchor do you think Steven's model of a portable Social Security? net is Is feasible and would this also be thinkable across the European Union

I think the question by the PhD student, you know Do we actually start changing the definition of an employee or do we start changing our Social Security system? That is the the crucial question because that is where you have to take a decision either you declare many more freelancers as

Employees as dependent contractors, but or you just declare, you know, if you have in such a freelance relationship We treat you as employees and therefore we put you into all into all the Social Security systems Which much more costly than what they are doing now, that would be one solution The other solution is really to open up Social Security systems to people who are now freelance and we have to do

One or the other or we have to do both. Okay, and that is the bigger question I would say we have to do both we have to really change the way we look at employees and and dependent contractors and and define very clearly what the

Distinction is but we also have to do something about a Social Security system And that is where the portable system comes in should we have individual accounts? for people who have who are freelance who earn some Social Security rights from being freelance and If they move to net to another job or to another a contract they can take their account with them

I think that is in principle a good idea the big question is always how does that relate to existing Social Security accounts because you know you is that Just part of the old account. Is that a new account and who pays into that because very often, you know Freelancers are attractive because they're cheapy and they're cheap because they don't pay Social Security

Contributions we have to stop here and someone needs to pay for that. Thank you so much We have to stop here what we learned this afternoon that the future of work and making Germany a leader in the digital age Apparently very much about labor and social policy. Thank you all for coming and thank you three on the stage. Thank you