The baby boomer cohorts will be retiring in the near future. What remains are massive staff shortages, which are becoming more and more noticeable in the public sector. The civil servants’ association demands that the federal government react quickly.
According to estimates by the German Association of Civil Servants (dbb), Germany is severely short of staff in the public sector. “According to the estimates of our 40 member unions, 360,000 employees are missing,” said dbb national chairman Ulrich Silberbach of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. “In doing so, we not only take into account vacancies, but also the personnel requirements that result from new tasks.”
In view of the wave of retirements, the dbb boss called for more jobs, a reduction in working hours for civil servants and performance-related pay. Silberbach pointed out that the number of missing jobs is only a snapshot. “In the next few years, the number will be much larger due to the retirement of the baby boomers.” In order to remedy the shortage of staff, Silberbach called for long-term personnel planning in the administration that takes demographic change into account. On the other hand, public service must be made more attractive through incentive systems.
Silberbach was dissatisfied with the work of the federal government. “The priorities of the new government surprise me: the Federal Minister of the Interior is talking about equal pay in football and early retirement for volunteers, instead of finally reducing the weekly working hours of federal civil servants and tackling long-term job planning in the administration.”
In 2020, almost 4.97 million employees worked in the federal, state and local public services, according to the “Public Service Monitor” of the civil servants’ association dbb. In 2019 it was around 4.88 million and the year before 4.80 million. With around 2.5 million employees, the staff of the federal states make up the largest share in the public service. This is followed by the municipalities with 1.6 million employees, around 500,000 in the federal government and almost 400,000 in social insurance.
