German Working opportunities with additional cost compensation are set in § 16 Abs.
As part of the German Hartz concept to increase employment and to decrease welfare costs, the aim of these working opportunities is to aid the long term unemployed in becoming accustomed to regular work again and thus increase their chances of securing paid employment.
[citation needed] According to the German constitution every administrative law which interferes with basic civil rights has to state clearly and exhaustively what the citizen has to do.
The compensation is not considered a wage, so it is not taken from the unemployment benefit[citation needed].
This means that the more people there are working with additional cost compensation the lower the average pension.