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Initial situation
From an industrial society to a service society: In many areas of Europe the service sector is gaining in importance—to the labor market, to economic development, to overcoming the financial and environmental crisis, to social cohesion, to quality of life, and not least to the attractiveness of countries, areas, or cities. Services have become a significant source of added value.
This is true in particular of Berlin—the service sector has been booming in Berlin for years. Of the circa one million employees in Berlin for whom compulsory retirement, health, unemployment and geriatric care insurance contributions must be paid, 83% are in the service sector. They shape the face of the city—as service personnel in the tourism or gastronomy sector, as retail workers, as providers of face-to-face services (health and social services, household services), and as producers of business services (computer and knowledge industries).
As demand for services rises, so too do demands on the quality of the work. Services should be high-quality, efficient, affordable, and innovative. But it is rare that rising demands and expectations match the conditions under which the work must be done—and it is just as rare that greater demands are accompanied by a corresponding increase in how the work is valued. The quality of the work suffers from this, as does the potential for innovation.
Services—Valuing added value in the Berlin metropolitan area
In the long run, services can only be as good as the conditions under which they are provided. The pilot project Services—Valuing added value in the Berlin metropolitan area therefore designed a plan of action for innovative service sector policy together with workers, businesses, trade associations, and politicians to increase society’s recognition and acknowledgment of the value—and the added value—of services in the Berlin metropolitan area. The project was supported from May 2009 until June 2010 by Wert.Arbeit GmbH Berlin together with the Berlin Senate Department of Integration, Labour and Social Issues, the Berlin/Brandenburg office of the service sector trade union ver.di, the State of Berlin and the European Social Fund.
2012