How Low Can You Go?

By Ursula Sautter/Bonn

Looking for a job in Germany? With unemployment in Europe's former economic powerhouse at a staggering 11.3%, auctioning off your labor online may be the best way to go. At www.jobdumping.de, a website that has been a hit since its launch in October 2004, job seekers post their qualifications-- in everything from pet grooming to accounting--and the minimum wage they will work for. Would-be employers then place their bids, with the highest offer taking the prize. Alternatively, employers post jobs that need doing, along with the maximum wage they are prepared to pay, and candidates then compete for the opening, until the cheapest bidder wins the job. Not surprisingly, local politicians and trade unionists have condemned the venture, which has chalked up 1,800 brokered deals, 10,000 registered users and thousands of hits a day, as "a slave market" and "grave threat" to the country's long-cherished social model. Its founder, Muenster student Fabian Loew, 32, however, believes his website is long-overdue applied realism. "We start where the politicians stop telling people the truth," says Loew, who plans to go global in September. Wages in Germany are so high, he argues, that "it has been too expensive to create new jobs." Loew's "eBay for the labor market" may help change that. --By Ursula Sautter/Bonn