Searching for a job
Johanna Baumler among the unemployed

Johanna looks out her living room window. (1/6)
 

         For two years Johanna Baumler has been desperately searching for a job. She is one of approximately 640,332 people in Berlin who is jobless. In 2004, Germany's unemployment rate was 11.7 percent - double that of the United States. In May 2005, the unemployment rate in Berlin alone was 18.9 percent according to the Federal Statistic Office of Germany's web site.  
         Johanna survives on the unemployment money that the government gives her each month. With the supplement she receives, she is able to exist in a sparsely decorated apartment that she shares with a friend. The run-down building is in the former communist-occupied East Berlin and bears the scars of World War II. A piece of scrap paper stuck in a crack between the doorbell and wall marks the entrance of the one-bedroom apartment where each occupant sleeps on a single mattress.  (continued>)