The public service in this country has been growing significantly for several years - but in the opinion of its employee representatives by no means strong enough.

Even the now 5.1 million employees and civil servants are not enough to fulfill all the politically decided tasks.

With this message, the DBB civil servants' association set out the framework for the collective bargaining round for more than 2.5 million federal and local employees at its annual conference in Cologne on Monday: Their pay should also rise sharply, since this is the only way to avoid competition for scarce staff against others employer is to be won.

The collective bargaining round begins on January 24th.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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"As of today, we are missing more than 360,000 skilled workers," said DBB boss Ulrich Silberbach in the presence of Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD), based on data from the trade unions in his association.

The gaps are particularly large among daycare educators, teachers and IT specialists who are supposed to advance the digitization of administration.

At the same time, more than 1.3 million employees - a good quarter - are older than 55, so they have to be replaced within ten years because of their age.

"Now we have two options: Either the politicians in charge dramatically reduce the tasks of general interest," explained Silberbach.

Or the only solution that remains, in his view, is the only realistic one: "More staff for the public service!"

"If you have to explain to the umpteenth stunned low-wage earner..."

However, there are enormous costs behind this: In the collective bargaining round, the DBB and the Verdi union are demanding 10.5 percent more money for the collective bargaining groups above 4762 euros per month.

For everyone else it should be 500 euros more per month, which corresponds to up to 25 percent.

According to calculations by the federal and local governments, this would result in additional annual expenditure of 20 billion euros.

The additional expenditure for 360,000 new employees can be extrapolated to almost 30 billion euros a year;

the average costs are set at around 80,000 euros per position.

This shows that the demands are about a fundamental question about the importance of public service for politics and society.

The New Year's Eve riots against the police and rescue workers in Berlin and elsewhere are further evidence for the DBB that a change of course is urgent - a commitment to an effective state backed by political action and money.

"The greatest danger to democracy, our economy and our prosperity is a broken public service," warned Silberbach.

Those responsible in politics must "finally be honest" and citizens "don't make any promises that cannot be kept".

But all too often the employees have to put their heads down to ensure that things are different.

For example, with the much-announced housing benefit reform on January 1st, which is intended to cushion housing and heating costs for two million households: "Is anyone here surprised," asked Silberbach the 450 conference guests, "that employees of housing benefit offices despair these days when they ten stunned low earners that it can take months from the application for housing benefit to the decision?"

However, unlike in the past, the accusation of "breaking savings" now meets a reality with staff growth.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, the total number of civil servants rose by 128,000 to 5.1 million from 2020 to 2021 alone.

They have added half a million since a low of 4.6 million in 2010.

Today there are 260,000 educators in municipal day-care centres, twice as many as in 2006.

Former federal constitutional judge Udo Di Fabio warned at the conference against expecting more staff to be the only solution.

Since staff is scarce everywhere, problems can only be shifted.

Politicians must ensure all the more that their laws can be implemented with the given capacities.

In principle, however, Di Fabio also agreed to the call for strengthening the public service.

Not only investments in bridges and rails have been neglected for too long - politicians have also paid too little attention to whether the foundations of public service are still able to cope with the real burdens.

The Minister of the Interior, meanwhile, assured the employees of the public sector of her appreciation.

However, she left it open how she intends to express this as the negotiator for the employers in the collective bargaining round.

It will not be "very easy", but we will certainly "come to an appropriate result together," said Faeser.

DBB and Verdi have already made it clear that a noticeable strike will probably precede this.