Now the labor shortage has even reached the center of politics.
It was two weeks ago, on Wednesday, that many members of the Bundestag received an e-mail: Please bring your own drinks to the committee meetings in the afternoon.
Normally there are trolleys with sandwiches and drinks at the doors to the meeting room - but this service had to be canceled that Wednesday.
The reason: lack of staff.
Patrick Bernau
Responsible editor for economy and "value" of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.
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Alexander Wulfers
Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.
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The members of parliament experienced directly in the Bundestag what every German is going through everywhere at the moment.
Neither planes nor trains are moving well because there is a lack of staff everywhere - this also has to do with the pandemic.
It has been known for years that Germany has too few nurses and too few craftsmen.
In the meantime, however, the shortage of staff goes far beyond that.
The local cinema only puts one advertisement before the children's screening: a job advertisement for service staff in that cinema.
A note is hanging on the barber shop, asking the owner to understand: he cannot accept new customers or answer the phone, and his day only has 24 hours.
Even the Chamber of Public Accountants complains about the lack of young people.
In around half of the German districts, the unemployment rate is so low that
that by economic definition there is full employment.
Who is going to install all the solar cells and heat pumps that Economics Minister Robert Habeck has planned for the coming years is anyone's guess.
It is true that wages will rise in the coming years.
Many companies and entire industries will try to outbid each other.
But that alone won't solve the labor shortage—when one company fills its vacancies, the gaps widen elsewhere.
It has long been clear that the labor market will be difficult
The situation may ease up in the short term.
Some people will return to their old jobs from health departments and testing centers.
But these months are giving Germany a foretaste of what the coming decades will look like.
And in the past few days it has become clear that the problems are getting even bigger than they previously seemed.
That has to do with the performance of the German schools.
It has long been clear that the job market will be difficult.
The debate began in the early 1900s.
FAS and FAZ included them in a major topic about the path to full employment.
Not all reactions were friendly, some doubted the "steep thesis".
The economist Karl-Heinz Paqué had written a book called “Full Employment”.
"Back then, some people thought: He's crazy," he remembers.
The demographics are quite obvious: Fewer and fewer children are being born, more and more old people are retiring – and Germany is yet to see the biggest shortage of workers: from 2025 onwards, the baby boomers will retire, the most numerous birth cohorts of all time.