According to the SPD, the lack of educators in Germany threatens a “day care center catastrophe”. The SPD reporter for early childhood education says: “Accelerator for further shortage of skilled workers”.
Erik von Malottki, rapporteur on early childhood education for the SPD parliamentary group, has warned of a “daycare catastrophe”. The recruitment of skilled workers must have top priority for the federal states and the federal government, said von Malottki of BILD am SONNTAG. The bottleneck in the day-care centers is a “accelerator for further shortages of skilled workers”. Nobody wants a “forced return to old role models”. Wages would have to be noticeably increased, says von Malottki. The average salary of educators in the public sector is 3,305 euros gross. The unions are demanding 10.5 percent more.
The children’s policy spokeswoman for the left-wing faction Heidi Reichinnek (Left) calls on the federal and state governments to recruit more childcare staff: “We now need a specialist summit immediately, at which the federal and state governments, together with providers and trade unions, develop a strategy to to bring back those who have left the profession and to attract new ones. For this we need better training and working conditions and, finally, better pay.”
Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) points out that the transfer of the federal program for language support (“language daycare centers”) to the federal states will retain staff: “My ministry and I have pulled out all the stops to ensure that the specialists remain in the system.” This affects 6,500 specialists.
