The German government aims to safeguard almost a million jobs with its planned stimulus package, Economy Minister Michael Glos said, seeking to assuage household concerns about the outlook for Europe's largest economy.
Germany is teetering on the brink of recession and, after last month putting together a 500 billion euro ($638.9 billion) bank rescue package, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government now want to introduce measures to help ordinary Germans.
"With the (stimulus) package we will approve in cabinet next Wednesday, we will definitely mobilise more than 30 billion euros in additional investments," Glos told Sunday's Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
"With that, we will secure or establish almost a million jobs," he said.
Although official data on Thursday showed Germany's jobless rate fell to a new 16-year low of 7.5 percent in October, fears are growing that the financial crisis will hit firms and lead to higher unemployment before next September's federal elections.
An Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag showed 49 percent of Germans expected their financial situation to deteriorate in 2009, with one in five worried they will lose their job.
The economy contracted in the second quarter and a government official told Reuters on Friday that gross domestic product (GDP) probably contracted by 0.25 percent in the July-September period, which would put Germany in recession.
A joint paper by the economy and finance ministries seen by Reuters on Saturday showed the stimulus package was expected to generate 50 billion euros in investments by companies, households and local authorities in 2009 and 2010. A further 20 billion euros in investments should be secured by the package, according to the paper.
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