Repurposed Malls and Record Pay Hikes: Germany’s Unconventional Battle Against Labour Shortages
Published on 07/12/2026 at 22:11 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Empty retail space in Neubrandenburg is about to get a new lease on life — as a primary school. The conversion of a former shopping centre into a classroom building is one of the more eye-catching responses to a national talent squeeze that now stretches from hospital wards to maths lessons.
After roughly a year of renovations, the site is scheduled to open at the end of October 2026. Similar projects have already taken shape in Hamburg and Frankfurt, where local authorities turned commercial properties into educational facilities to address a chronic lack of school capacity.
Care workers see salaries climb
The push for unconventional solutions extends to pay. On 1 July, new minimum-wage floors took effect for nursing staff across Germany. Unskilled care assistants now earn at least 16.52 euros per hour; qualified assistants receive 17.80 euros; and fully trained professionals take home a minimum of 21.03 euros.
Those figures build on a 2.8 percent pay rise that came into force on 1 May under the public-sector nursing wage agreement (TVöD-Pflege), plus a monthly allowance of about 141 euros for eligible employees.
Austria is taking a similar approach. Health Minister Schumann has announced an annual bonus of 2,200 euros for full-time nursing staff, with the funds ring-fenced until 2028.
Classrooms turn to career changers
In the education sector, Lower Saxony is leaning heavily on people who never planned to teach. The state government created 5,600 additional teaching posts. Of the 2,000 positions advertised for the new school year, about 75 percent were filled.
The overall lesson-coverage rate edged up from 96.3 to 97.2 percent. Education Minister Hamburg had a pointed recommendation for new graduates: consider accepting a standard employment contract instead of the traditional civil?service status, particularly in underserved regions where vacancies are hardest to close.
Nationally, shortages are most acute in mathematics, science, sport, and art. During the 2024/25 school year, career changers accounted for 11.2 percent of all teachers — roughly 84,100 people.
Rural health care under strain
The personnel crunch is perhaps most visible in Brandenburg, where about one in five family?doctor posts remains vacant. A single physician there now looks after an average of 1,436 patients.
The state health ministry is exploring mobile family?doctor practices for rural towns such as Jüterbog, Spremberg, and Guben. Yet the regional medical association has raised legal objections to the concept of doctor’s surgeries on wheels.
More pressure is coming from hospital ward closures. The maternity unit at St. Josefs-Krankenhaus in Potsdam will cease operations on 1 August. The midwives’ association warned that expectant mothers will face significantly longer travel times as a result.
Taken together, the measures — from wage increases to repurposed malls and unconventional recruitment — illustrate the breadth of tactics Germany is deploying as its workforce gaps widen.
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