“Looking for a job” does not stop the vaccination requirement in nursing

Mandatory vaccination hack looking for work? A post is circulating on Facebook that announces a supposed hack of the vaccination requirement for medical and nursing professions from March 16, 2022. Afterwards, as many people as possible should register with the employment agency as job seekers in order to create the threat scenario of a supply emergency.

The federal government would query the relevant figures by the deadline of March 15th and determine whether compulsory vaccination can be introduced without overwhelming and destabilizing the health system.
Apparently the entire staff of a Palatinate nursing home has already registered as looking for work. The information allegedly came from Palatinate employees of the employment agency. One thing is clear: there will definitely be a vaccination requirement for facility-related professions by March 15, 2022. The Bundestag has passed a corresponding law. The Federal Council has confirmed it. It is also clear that the procedure for implementing this vaccination requirement for medical and nursing professions is still completely unclear.

Many topics about compulsory vaccination in nursing are mixed up

In order to unravel this mass of information and get to the heart of the matter, several questions must be considered.
1. Who can register as a job seeker?
And when? 2. Has an entire nursing home actually registered as looking for work?
3. Is there any information from the government to the employment offices to collect this data by the deadline?
4. Could such a concerted effort actually overturn compulsory vaccination?

And now one after the other: from looking for work to compulsory vaccination

1. Who can register as a job seeker?

This is where the conceptual confusion begins.
A distinction must be made between unemployed and job-seeking. The employment agency encourages you to register as a job seeker if you know that your employment will end soon.
For example, because the employment contract has been terminated by the employer or a fixed-term employment contract is expiring. If the efforts to find a new job have not been successful and - despite support from the employment agency - no new job has been found, only then will you be reported as unemployed . ( Here )
2. An entire nursing home has actually registered as looking for work ?
Very unlikely, but also irrelevant.
All employees affected by the vaccination requirement would then have to be unvaccinated. There is no reason and no possibility for vaccinated employees to register as job seekers. Solidarity with unvaccinated colleagues does not count legally. Since the law has only just been passed and the procedure for its implementation has not yet been finally clarified in detail, only a few employers, if any, have so far given notice due to a lack of legal certainty. And by chance, not all contracts in this facility, which is supposed to be located in Speyer, are limited until March 15th. For further explanation see the answer to question 4. As I said, very unlikely. More intensive research does not produce any results. 3. Is there any information from the government to the employment offices to collect this data by the deadline?
This cannot be verified through research.
However, the state governments generally request current labor market figures to be reported on a regular basis. This also includes data split by occupational groups. What is specifically being discussed is that comprehensive vaccination monitoring should be introduced in the relevant facilities.
This means that the states should collect the vaccination rates in all medical and care facilities by the middle of the month and forward them to the Federal Ministry of Health. However, this has not yet been decided. Individual states such as Rhineland-Palatinate already have such vaccination monitoring on a two-week basis. From such figures, some of which are already available, even if not collected systematically, it is of course possible to draw conclusions about where supply problems may arise.
4. Could such a concerted effort actually overturn compulsory vaccination?
Even during the preparation of the law on facility-related vaccination requirements, there was repeated criticism that this could lead to a wave of layoffs and thus a destabilization of the health system.
The online magazine Business Insider reported on February 1st that a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health had admitted upon request that the responsible health authority decides on the further procedure and the measures to be taken within the scope of its discretion when it comes to compulsory vaccination. All “circumstances of the individual case” would be taken into account. The spokesman continued: “Until the health department has made the decision to ban entry or activity, the affected employees may generally continue to be employed. Controls and decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. Of course, the aspect of whether staff shortages in hospitals, care facilities and doctors' practices can be avoided during a transitional period also plays a role" ( here ).
So it won't be on March 16th. All unvaccinated nursing staff are automatically unemployed and the health authorities are theoretically in control of whether there are shortages or not. In concrete terms, this also means that, according to the new law, from March 16th all new employment contracts may only be concluded with vaccinated staff. However, as described above, existing employment contracts depend on the decision of the health authorities as a case-by-case decision. They currently do not have the capacity to deal with such contractual issues on a large scale. It will take some time before concrete decisions are made for the individual employee, which will then certainly be subject to legal review, until a legally secure procedure is available.

Conclusion: The vaccination requirement for medical and nursing professions stands. Somehow.

The vaccination requirement for facility-related professions such as medical and nursing staff is there.
The associated risks with regard to the secure care of patients and residents are known. Possible supply emergencies should now be resolved through flexible implementation of the law. There is a lot of momentum in the political discussion about the implementation of the facility-related vaccination requirement.
According to the Federal Ministry of Health, unvaccinated staff can expect to continue to be employed for the time being. But it will be difficult or even impossible to get a new employment contract without being vaccinated. Do the unvaccinated nursing staff actually realize that if they quit their jobs themselves in protest, they won't be able to find a new one in this profession until further notice?
And will you probably also receive a suspension of benefits from the employment agency for several months? After critically assessing the current situation, reporting yourself to the employment office as looking for work should be a friendly way for those responsible to be able to better assess where many unvaccinated nursing staff work. The health authorities will do everything in their power to maintain the safety of care. But registering as a job seeker will not change the basic vaccination requirement.