Retirement at 63 is popular but expensive.
In view of the labor shortage, criticism is growing - and calls for the controversial model to be buried.
Munich - In the fight against the growing shortage of workers, the labor market expert Oliver Stettes from the employer-related Institute of German Economics (IW) has called for early retirement regulations to be abandoned.
"Several bridges to early retirement would have to be torn down," said Stettes on Monday at an event organized by the Bavarian Business Association (vbw) in Munich.
Companies should start thinking about how they can keep older workers in the company at an early stage.
+
Older man at work as a painter: According to economic experts, Germans have to work longer as they get older to counteract the shortage of skilled workers.
© Jan Woitas/dpa
Before you discuss retirement at 70, retirement at 67 must be implemented, said vbw CEO Bertram Brossardt.
The retirement age is currently around 64 for men and slightly lower for women.
Stettes considers it a mistake that the additional income limits for pensioners at 63 have been abolished.
The loss of early retirement is easily offset by a 50 percent job.
But half the workforce is lost to the economy.
Germany must become more attractive to foreign workers
It is also necessary for Germany and Bavaria to become more attractive as immigration countries, said Stettes.
"They don't all come here by themselves," said Stettes.
At the moment, a large proportion of foreign workers come from other EU countries.
In the future, there will also be a shortage of workers in other EU countries.
To attract workers from third countries, expert Stettes suggests:
Address specialists and potential trainees/students in a targeted manner.
Promote language courses abroad to improve the language skills of professionals.
Facilitate labor migration through a points system.
Accelerate bureaucratic processes for issuing visas and recognition procedures.
Means: Shorter waiting and faster processing times.
DGB rejects higher retirement age
The Bavarian DGB chairman Bernhard Stiedl, on the other hand, rejected the demand for a longer working life.
Many did not make it to the age of 65 or beyond to work.
"As we approach retirement age, the proportion of a cohort who is still in employment subject to social security contributions is steadily decreasing," he said.
In 2021, only 14.3 percent of 65-year-olds were employed in this way, and the full-time rate was even lower.
"Under these circumstances, retirement at 67 is nothing more than a pension reduction program."
Skills shortage in many sectors
In Germany there is a shortage of workers in almost all sectors.
They are absent now and will be absent in the future.
"Doing nothing is not an option!" Economist Oliver Stettes is certain.
Demand is particularly high in the areas of "health, social affairs, teaching/education" and "construction, architecture, surveying/building technology".
In the third quarter of 2022, 60 percent of the vacancies could not be filled here because there was a lack of qualified personnel.
This is according to surveys by the Federal Employment Agency (BA) and the Institute for the Labor Market (IAB).
Shortage of skilled workers: 22 billion euros in economic output are missing
The bare numbers are threatening: The so-called skilled worker gap in the period from July 2021 to July 2022 averaged 537,923 vacancies.
They could not be filled because there is a lack of workers with the required qualifications.
That's what figures from the IW say.
The trend in the coming years is rising.
The German median income is 3516 euros, gross, per month.
Median income means: 50 percent of Germans get more, 50 percent get less than 42,192 euros a year.
This means that the German economy loses around 22.7 billion euros in economic power every year.
The state evades the tax payments of these vacant positions.
No payments are made into the pension fund either.
The three D's: That's why there is a shortage of qualified workers in Germany
There are three main reasons for the shortage of workers and skilled workers, says labor market expert Oliver Stettes from IW Cologne: The three D's.
decarbonization
digitalization
demographics
Decarbonization and digitization go hand in hand, Stettes states: "Without digitization, there can be no sustainable ecological transformation." The struggle of the German economy to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and ultimately to combat climate change can only succeed with successful digitization.
Stettes believes that the fear that mass jobs will be lost as a result of digitization is unfounded: "No systematic job cuts are discernible as a result of digitization, but changes in professional requirements are to be expected."
The population of Germany is getting older.
This means that "a decreasing number of employed people has to generate income from a growing non-working population," explains Stettes.
In macroeconomic terms, this means "that the economy's growth potential, innovative strength and ability to transform are decreasing."
(rowa with dpa)
List of rubrics: © Jan Woitas/dpa
