Did a German Former Waitress Lose Her Unemployment Benefits Because She Refused To Become A Prostitute?

Norman Seibrasse has just posted to the Econ-Law e-mail list run by Lloyd Cohen that the answer is a qualified "yes".

The entrepreneurial brothel owner mentioned ... earlier ... was apparently the first brothel owner to use the system and when she did the algorithm matched the job to the waitress. A letter was then automatically generated informing her of the opportunity. There is a box to check to accept or decline the job on a form which must be returned. When she declined, the system automatically cut her benefits. To this point everything happened without human intervention. She then complained to human authorities who immediately recognized the match as an error and reinstated her benefits.

The algorithm was immediately changed.