Germany Spent $48 Billion to Protect Jobs From Covid Fallout

Germany spent about 42 billion euros ($48 billion) on a program to secure jobs threatened by the coronavirus pandemic.

A government program to pay most of an employee’s wages when they can’t work because of operational issues like lockdowns was worth the cost, Germany’s Labor Minister Hubertus Heil said in an interview with Tagespiegel on Sunday. 

“The alternative -- namely allowing mass unemployment to return -- would have been much, much more expensive for Germany, socially and economically,” he said.

The program was just one of the measures the government in Berlin implemented to shield its economy from the crisis. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Germany has also paid out around 78 billion euros in aid to companies and extended 55.2 billion euros in loans.