Nursing staff is still in short supply.

However, since this week at the latest, there has been no shortage of government guidelines on how nursing homes and nursing services have to pay their employees – instead, the sheer volume is gradually raising its own problems: On Monday, the nursing care funds published an eagerly awaited wage table – it hangs up New minimum standards for remuneration based on the "Care Wages Improvement Act" passed by the old government.

And on Tuesday, the current government announced new decisions by the Nursing Minimum Wage Commission, which will lead to an increase in the existing nationwide wage floor for nursing staff.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Homes and services that are currently also struggling with elderly care under corona conditions and compulsory vaccination for their staff are faced with further confusing tasks: How do the two wage regulations work?

And how do you use them side by side without making mistakes?

A current detail from the Minimum Wage Commission shows that this is not going smoothly: As can be heard from their circles, the eight commission members knew nothing in their final hearing on Saturday that the long-term care insurance funds would present their table with the new minimum wages on Monday – and nothing about their content.

It is now at least undisputed that the national minimum wage for care will increase by 12.7 to 18.5 percent by December 2023 with the new decision of this commission.

The lower limit for nursing assistants without training is currently EUR 12 per hour and will rise to EUR 12.55 in April – still after the old Commission decision of 2020.

This is followed by three new levels up to 14.15 euros.

The separate minimum wage for skilled workers will increase from the current EUR 15 to EUR 15.40 in April and then to EUR 18.15 by December 2023.

“Care Wages Improvement Act” comes into force

Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD), who appointed the commission of employee and employer representatives, praised the new guidelines as “important steps” on a path that the government wants to continue.

The Secretary General of the German Red Cross (DRK), Christian Reuter, who worked on the compromise in the commission, also spoke of an "extreme burden for the providers of the care facilities".

So far, it is unclear to what extent they will receive additional funds from nursing care financing for the increased wage costs.

Services and homes are not free to simply demand higher prices for their services when costs rise in the short term.

They have to negotiate about this at regular intervals with representatives of the long-term care insurance and the social welfare offices, although legal requirements for cost containment also apply.

But despite this price brake, the personal contribution that home residents have to pay alone or with the help of the social welfare office has been increasing rapidly: for inpatient care, this is now an average of 2179 euros per month, 111 euros more than a year ago, as the VDEK association of health insurance companies reports.

Since 2018, the increase has even been 400 euros per month.

But the question of how the minimum wage for nursing care will fit together with the specifications of the wage table of the nursing care insurance funds is also tricky.

On the basis of a survey among providers who are bound by collective bargaining agreements, it quantifies so-called typical regional remuneration for each federal state - for example 17.75 euros for unskilled workers in Schleswig-Holstein (FAZ from 8 February).

From September onwards, the companies must also observe these as minimum conditions, unless they are directly bound by a recognized collective agreement.

This is what the “Care Wages Improvement Act” stipulates.

Nursing homes suddenly under time pressure

However, there is a technical difference between this requirement and the minimum care wage, as experts explain: Each company only has to achieve this “regionally customary” wage on average for the respective employee group.

Where ten assistants work, they must be paid a total of 177.50 euros per hour – in the example of Schleswig-Holstein.

However, if one assistant receives 22 euros, it may be correspondingly less for another.

Under no circumstances may wages fall below the national minimum wage.

Before that, however, that "improvement law" puts the nursing services and homes under time pressure: They should officially report by the end of February that they will adhere to this wage rule in the future - or instead state bindingly which collective agreement they are subject to.

However, this is not enough for the Verdi trade union, under whose political pressure these regulations were created.

Elderly care must be "removed from economic competition and commercial profit maximization," she continued on Tuesday.