Germans for hire at bargain prices

Two unusual new websites - auctioning jobs and offering the 'German touch' - reflect the fact that unemployment in Germany is at a critical level, writes Derek Scally in Berlin.

Forget desperate housewives: this is about desperate Germans. Faced with 12 per cent unemployment - rising to more than 25 per cent in the east - jobless Germans are swallowing their pride and renting themselves out for work over the Internet.

The irony couldn't be greater: the Internet, one-time El Dorado of the new economy, is now home to two cruel job websites. It's Revenge of the Dotcoms.

First up is jobdumping.de, an innovative website that the founder calls "ebay for the working world". Would-be employers register vacant positions on the website and a maximum per-hour wage. Interested browsers can apply for the job, competing with other applicants by underbidding other per-hour rates. It's a race to the bottom that leaves the employer with the cheapest available employee.

"It's just about bringing people in contact with each other through a wage that is acceptable to both sides," says Fabian Löw (31), the man behind jobdumping.de. "Work is simply too expensive in Germany and the state employment offices don't work efficiently to find people new jobs. Our website offers people a platform to help themselves."

To counteract negative publicity from the name "jobdumping", Löw relaunched the website under the name lohnauktion.de (salary auction). He stresses that the website, attracting nearly 80,000 visitors in its first two weeks, isn't just a how-low-can-you-go market for jobs.

Applicants can create their own skills profile for potential employers and a special filter ensures that only suitably qualified applicants can bid on a job.

The latest jobs to be posted include a man offering €1,000 for someone to renovate his bedroom; a Berlin computer technician who will rescue the contents of your hard drive for €30; even babysitters are advertising their services for €6 an hour.

Löw says the website is a deliberate attempt to provoke and to challenge what he calls the average German's greatest qualification, "world champion at lamenting". His website has attracted lots of praise from abroad but has been hugely controversial at home, with critics calling it a shabby example of vulture capitalism at work.

The criticism doesn't bother Löw, a former social worker. "Social work isn't always about cardigan-wearers slurping tea," he says. "You try to find solutions to problems and the problem in Germany at the moment is how to efficiently broker to create jobs.

"Whether this website is the perfect solution will only become clear in time, But we really have a problem here if we don't intervene, with our neighbours in Poland and the Czech Republic prepared to work more for less money. We just aren't competitive."

Löw and his three colleagues are planning to export the concept in the coming months, but they might face competition from rentagerman.de, a website offering Germans "for all your personal and social needs".

Various packages on offer include a €1,200 business package for meetings and conferences, and a €800 family package involving cooking and childminding, to "give your home a German touch".

The website was created by Munich artist Johannes Blank as a publicity stunt, with "testimonials" from satisfied customers.

"I hadn't seen a German since my time in World War II. I cried, it was such an emotional experience," writes "David U" an 82-year-old from Denver. "We ate 'Heidelberger Bergklösse' together every evening and have been writing each other once a month since he left. He's become a real friend to me."

It's an indication of the job situation in Germany that what started as a joke became deadly serious when Blank started getting applications from desperate Germans, and more than 200 requests for Germans from around the world.

The Germans consider themselves above certain kinds of work. Czechs and Poles do slaughterhouse, cleaning and manual work.

It's a moot point whether the rent-a-German concept takes off, but Blank seems prepared for all eventualities. It has taken Germans by surprise to hear that they are so in demand. But anyone planning on renting a German should be aware of one thing: Germans are the early-riser kings of Europe, according to a new survey. The results show that 29 per cent of Germans are up and about before 6am - twice the European average - while 60 per cent of Germans are up by 7am. Hello German, goodbye lie-in.