Dhe employer-friendly Institute of German Economics (IW) is sounding the alarm with a view to an imminent decline in the number of people in work. “We are heading for a dramatic situation,” warned IW economist Holger Schäfer in an interview with the online portal “t-online”. The number of people in employment has reached its highest level. From now on it will steadily decrease.
The background is the transition of workers from the baby boom generation, many of whom will retire in the current decade. According to a study by the IW, the working-age population will shrink from the current 53.1 million to 50.1 million in 2035.
These figures already take into account an assumed annual net immigration of 420,000 people by 2023 and 320,000 people per year by 2035. According to the expert Schäfer, an annual increase of 400,000 people in employment is needed to cushion the forecast decline.
If you take into account that more than a million people in Germany emigrate every year, almost 1.5 million people would have to immigrate every year. At the same time, Schäfer warned: “We have to give up the idea of only bringing fully trained specialists to Germany. Whether qualified or unskilled: we can be happy if enough people immigrate at all.” These could also still be trained in Germany.