ARD report: Federal ministries apparently want to create more than 700 new jobs

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Federal Chancellery: 75 new positions planned

Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa

According to a media report, the federal government wants to create more than 700 new jobs in the federal ministries.

According to an evaluation of the 2022 budget draft by the ARD magazine "Report Mainz" on Tuesday, 758 new jobs are to be created and 54 other items are to be cut.

The bottom line is that the government apparatus is expected to grow by 704 jobs.

All ministries called for new posts.

SPD and Green-led ministries want a particularly large number of additional jobs: According to the report, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is calling for a further 75 jobs for the Chancellery.

Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) wants 101 additional jobs for his ministry.

The interior ministry wants a further 103 employees, although a separate ministry is being set up for construction and housing.

Construction Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) claims 104 new posts.

New tasks

Compared to "Report Mainz", the ministries justified the increase in jobs with the management of new tasks that would result from the coalition agreement.

According to the personnel overview of the draft budget, the new positions also include 128 highly paid civil servant posts with a monthly salary of up to 15,000 euros.

According to the report, additional personnel costs of around 60 million euros per year result from the salary groups of the established posts.

The ministers also want to appoint many additional state secretaries.

Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has two additional state secretaries, making it a total of six.

Habeck receives an additional State Secretary through his position as Vice Chancellor.

There will be three state secretaries in the new building ministry.

With a total of 71 parliamentary and civil servants, the traffic light government wants to employ more than any other government before it.

The government of Gerhard Schröder (SPD) 20 years ago had only 48 employees.

For a parliamentary state secretary, the costs for official salaries, costs for secretarial staff, company cars and drivers amount to around 500,000 euros a year.

However, the transfer of political officials to temporary retirement after the change of minister is also expensive, which affects a total of 32 highly paid officials.

The President of the Taxpayers' Association, Reiner Holznagel, called the number of new jobs at "Report Mainz" "frighteningly high".

The government does not keep what it promises, "namely to set priorities and be frugal." The budget spokesman for the CDU, Christian Haase, said: "This government has absolutely no relationship to money.

Here staff is financed on debt.«

In the past legislative period, the CDU and SPD had created around 2,500 jobs.

Budget politicians from the Greens and FDP had sharply criticized this at the time.

mike/AFP