Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus wants to combat the labor shortage in daycare centers through, among other things, the better integration of foreign skilled workers.
Language courses and faster recognition of foreign educational qualifications are part of an “overall strategy for skilled workers in daycare centers and full-time” published by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs and the states on Tuesday. Recognition procedures should therefore be simplified and made possible alongside work. The overall strategy also stipulates that people without a secondary school leaving certificate also have access to jobs in the industry.
“With around 50 recommendations, we want to attract more people to childcare in the short, medium and long term and keep them in this important professional field,” explained Minister Paus after a meeting of the Conference of Youth and Family Ministers of the Federal States (JFMK). “This can be achieved if, for example, we make entry more attractive by promoting retraining, through remunerated, practice-integrated training models and through more flexible training and further education.” The economy would also benefit from this if more than 800,000 people were additionally available to the labor market through better care offers.
According to the ministry, by 2030 there could be a shortage of between 50,000 and 90,000 skilled workers in daycare centers alone. In total, a good 840,000 employees currently work in childcare – more than in the automotive industry. “We have to ensure the staffing requirements in daycare centers and schools across the board in order to give all children access to early childhood education,” explained JFMK chairwoman Sascha Karolin Aulepp (SPD), Senator for Children and Education in Bremen.
Praise for the strategy came from the Greens. “Many adjustments need to be made to meet the need for skilled workers in early childhood education in order to quickly relieve the professional field in the short term and make it attractive in the medium and long term,” explained the Green family politician Franziska Krumwiede-Steiner. Turning these adjustment screws is now the task of the federal government, states and sponsors.
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