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Clemens Fuest, Ifo boss
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Kay Nietfeld / DPA
The number of people of working age is falling, and with it the supply of skilled workers on the labor market: This is one of the “most important issues” for economic policy in the next ten to twenty years, warns Clemens Fuest, President of the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (Ifo ) at the University of Munich, in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung".
He demands: "When skilled workers are scarce, wages have to rise."
Fuest, Professor of Economics, explains that this is how the market economy works.
"As an economist, one would say: there is no shortage of skilled workers, only scarcity." It is like diamonds.
The high prices also mean that people would be excluded from the market.
Many would like to have a diamond ring, but decided against it because it was too expensive.
»So wage increases also have the function that skilled workers are not deployed in the places where they are less urgently needed.
In this respect, wage increases are correct even if not a single skilled worker immigrates as a result, ”argues Fuest.
"Anyone who complains about a shortage of skilled workers should raise wages."
The Ifo boss does not want to accept as a counter-argument that companies that could not afford high wages could go under: "That is bitter for the companies concerned, but economically correct."
The corona pandemic has exacerbated the shortage of skilled workers on the one hand, for example because the number of training contracts has decreased, on the other hand, the restrictions have led to a more efficient use of skilled workers, for example through the use of digital technologies.
The Internet opens up great potential: You sit less unnecessarily on trains and planes, it also opens up access to specialists all over the world, says Fuest.
There are now more activities that can be done from the home office.
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Abolish spouse splitting, expand childcare
In order to get more people of working age into work, the Ifo boss calls for the abolition of spouse splitting in Germany.
“The part-time rate is high.
This is also due to the fact that in our tax system the second earner is taxed heavily.
Something should be changed about that. "
He does not want to replace the spouse splitting "with individual taxation, as some are demanding, but with real splitting in which a certain amount can be transferred to the partner, which reflects the maintenance obligations."
The Ifo President also calls for more comprehensive childcare to increase employment in Germany.
"Child care must not collapse from one moment to the next," says Fuest in the "FAS" interview.
"It cannot be that parents always live under this sword of Damocles, that if a child is sick or one has to work a little longer, there is no care." Child care must generally be more flexible and available for longer.
Fok / AFP / dpa
