A jobless 19-year-old from the Bavarian town of Augsburg in Germany says she was “totally horrified” when a local job centre offered her a job serving drinks in one of the town’s biggest brothels.

This is according to English news website The Local, which adds that the job centre’s director admits the job offer was “something that should not have happened”, and would not do it again.

As readers with a good memory for this kind of story may remember, this isn’t the first time a continental job centre has been scolded for making a job suggestion of this sort – although the last incident, involving a former teacher in the South-West of France, saw the job centre less apologetic.