Germany Sees Record Number of Seniors in the Workforce, Data Shows
According to a recent report, the number of Germans aged 67 or older still in the workforce has reached a record high. In a response to a parliamentary inquiry by the Left Party’s Sahra Wagenknecht, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) revealed that over 1.1 million people in this age group were employed in the past year, the highest figure ever recorded. In contrast, in 2023, the number was 51,000 lower.
Compared to 2004, the number of seniors in the workforce has quadrupled, from 288,000 to over 1.1 million. Meanwhile, the total number of retirees has only marginally increased, from 19.6 million in 2004 to 21.4 million in the past year.
The debate on the topic was sparked by the CDU’s Carsten Linnemann, who recently suggested that seniors in Germany do not work enough and that their numbers should be increased to boost the country’s prosperity. In response, BSW leader Sahra Wagenknecht accused Linnemann of belittling seniors, saying, “Today, as many retirees are working as never before.” While she acknowledged that it would be positive if companies made more use of the skills of older workers, she also emphasized that not all seniors continue to work solely for financial reasons. “The quadrupling of the numbers, however, shows that hundreds of thousands of seniors are simply forced to supplement their meager benefits” she said, calling for a system change, similar to the one in Austria.