German prostitute sees sex trade hope for jobless
 

BERLIN (Reuters) - A celebrated Berlin prostitute has said that German job centre advisers shouldn't shy away from offering jobs in the sex industry to the long-term unemployed.



Molly Luft, who sold her famous Berlin brothel two months ago and now runs a bar in the city's lively Kreuzberg district, on Monday said the sex industry was always looking for new recruits.


"Why shouldn't they send the unemployed to work in the sex industry? Before it was a grey zone, but now employees are insured and receive benefits," Luft told Reuters. "People would no longer be unemployed and could earn themselves a living."


Most business sectors in Germany are shedding workers, and unemployment is expected to exceed five million, nearly 11 percent of the workforce, in January for the first time since reunification in 1990.


German sex workers have been on a par with any other employee since the government legalised prostitution in 2001. They are entitled to social security benefits and pay taxes.


Registered brothel keepers also believe they have a right to seek new staff through job centres and have been scouring job seekers' databases for suitable matches.


"I was always looking for workers over 30 years in the trade. People aren't willing to work very much but they expect to earn a lot of money," Luft said.


A spokesman for the Federal Labour Office said that if job seekers said they were prepared to work as, for example, dancers in strip bars, advisers could put them in touch with any suitable employers, but vacancies would not be displayed in job centres.


He also stressed job centres would not look for prostitutes on behalf of brothels, nor offer sex industry jobs to people who hadn't specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.


Speculation has grown over recent weeks that Germany's new welfare reforms, obliging the long-term unemployed to take any available job or risk losing their benefits, could lead to


women being offered jobs in the sex industry.


"One can't expect everyone to be prepared to work in the sex industry," Luft said. "Plus if people aren't very attractive they aren't going to make much money," she added.