Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - The public service is facing a personal bloodletting. Thousands of young people who see their professional future in offices, parks or kindergartens are missing. "With a gap of currently 30,000 to 40,000 vacancies in the southwest alone, a change in image is essential," says Kai Rosenberger, head of the civil service association. "We lack people in front and behind - that's why we have to become more attractive for young people," he told the German Press Agency. The situation will become even more tense for the largest employer between the Main and Lake Constance, with 613,000 employees, if half of the employees retire in the next 20 years.
Bottlenecks were already evident in the police, tax administration and judiciary. In these areas, Baden-Württemberg is at the bottom of the nationwide list in terms of staffing per 1,000 inhabitants. The 1,700 new jobs recently agreed by Grün-Schwarz are a drop in the ocean, Rosenberger believes.
The community day is also sounding the alarm: Head of Human Resources Heidi Schmid says: "In view of the demographic change and the steadily increasing number of tasks, we urgently need more junior staff." Those responsible in the municipalities would do their best to retain and attract skilled workers, for example with offers for further training or digitization. But that's not enough.
Joachim Beck, rector of the administrative college in Kehl, regrets that many young people associate public service with boring work in dusty offices. But the opportunities for development there are immense: "The major tasks of social transformation, energy transition, mobility and nutrition must be developed locally".
According to Rosenberger, the issue of violence against civil servants is part of the image problem. "People don't respect us anymore." Ads usually came to nothing - due to staff shortages in the judiciary. "If we don't have enough staff to prosecute even minor crimes and the proceedings are therefore dropped because of minor crimes, that deters potential interested parties."
