A German worker born before 2 January 1961 can still receive a pension for Berufsunfähigkeit, inability to work in one’s occupation. He counts as unable if he can work less than six hours a day, compared with healthy insured people of similar training and equivalent knowledge and abilities. Which other jobs he can be referred to depends on the length and scope of his training and on his previous occupation.
The protection has been cut back. Since the pension reform of 2001, new claims arise only from a reduced capacity to earn at all. For the unemployed, a rule in force in 1993 set five qualification levels, from the academic to the unskilled worker. A job seeker could be moved down one level after each four to six months without work. Today the law says that a job is not unreasonable merely because the person was not trained for it.