The German government today appealed to companies in the country to offer jobs to people over 60 years of age to alleviate the shortage of personnel that currently affects practically all professional sectors of the country.
“The lack of personnel threatens to slow economic growth,” Social Democrat Labour and Social Affairs Minister Hubertus Heil told the popular daily Bild on Sunday.
The minister warns that the country “cannot afford” that the labor market does not offer hardly any work to people over 60 years of age and recalls that these workers are generally “highly qualified” to remain active, if they wish.
Heil, however, does not plan to raise the age of access to retirement, which is currently 66 years and which, according to the labor reform approved in 2005, will gradually rise to 67 years in 2030.
The minister’s statements follow the pronouncement a few days ago of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to favor jobs for people over 60 or even after retirement, if they decide to remain active.
Heil presented a few weeks ago the framework lines developed by his Ministry to facilitate access to the German labor market for non-EU workers in the face of personnel problems suffered by sectors essential to its economy, from technicians to computer scientists, health or hospitality workers.
These lines, which should become a bill in the coming months, foresee, among other things, to attract non-EU non-EU people to the German labour market without an employment contract or previous vocational training position, but with basic knowledge of German.
According to recent estimates by the Federal Employment Agency, there are currently seven million jobs to be filled in various sectors.
According to these calculations, Germany needs to incorporate about 400,000 non-EU workers annually or a total of 35 million until 2035.
The unemployment rate in Germany is currently at 5.3%, while employment figures are at all-time highs, with 45.7 million people working in the workforce, in a country with 83 million inhabitants.
