1. Home
  2. Studies
  3. Civil service at federal, states and municipalities: Development over time and differences by task area
Björn Kauder IW-Report No. 35 28. August 2024 Civil service at federal, states and municipalities: Development over time and differences by task area

In recent years, the federal, state and local governments have significantly increased their staffing levels. Nevertheless, many places are complaining about a shortage of staff, partly because increasing regulation is putting a strain on public sector staff.

PDF herunterladen
Development over time and differences by task area
Björn Kauder IW-Report No. 35 28. August 2024

Civil service at federal, states and municipalities: Development over time and differences by task area

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

In recent years, the federal, state and local governments have significantly increased their staffing levels. Nevertheless, many places are complaining about a shortage of staff, partly because increasing regulation is putting a strain on public sector staff.

Due to the onset of demographic change, the need for new staff is likely to increase further, while digitalization will initially require additional specialists. If it is not possible to counteract this through less complex legislation and efficiency gains, giving employees the status of a civil servant will remain as a means of attracting more staff to the public sector. Irrespective of the normative question of whether the (civil servant) workforce should grow or decline, this article examines how the proportion of civil servants - i.e. the proportion of civil servants in all public sector employees - has developed. To this end, the proportion of civil servants in the years 2012 and 2022 is compared in various functions of government. The study looks at the federal government, the federal states and the municipalities as aggregates as well as the federal states individually.

For the federal government, the results show that the proportion of civil servants has only decreased slightly by 0.5 percentage points. A significant increase can be seen in the Federal Armed Forces administration and in political leadership, while a decrease can be seen in internal administration, among others. In the federal states, the proportion of civil servants fell by 4.6 percentage points, particularly in elementary school, political management and central administration. The proportion of civil servants is higher in the old federal states than in the new ones, although some new federal states have increased their proportion of civil servants in recent years. The proportion of civil servants at local authorities has declined significantly. Between 2012 and 2022, this fell from a low level by 2.6 percentage points and thus by more than a sixth. The decline affects all municipal functions without exception, especially the areas of social affairs and youth, internal administration and security and order. One reason for this is the strong increase in personnel in daycare facilities for children, which was carried out entirely by employees. Seen across all levels, the instrument of giving employees the status of a civil servant has thus become relatively less important.

PDF herunterladen
Development over time and differences by task area
Björn Kauder IW-Report No. 35 28. August 2024

Civil service at federal, states and municipalities: Development over time and differences by task area

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

More on the topic

Read the article
Reparatur und Bau einer Autobahn von oben.
Sebastian Dullien* / Simon Gerards Iglesias / Michael Hüther / Katja Rietzler* IW-Policy Paper No. 2 14. May 2024

Challenges for the debt brake

In 2019, Bardt et al. (2019) initially presented a comprehensive estimate of the unmet public investment needs in Germany not covered in household planning at the time, totaling around €460 billion over ten years.

IW

Read the article
Martin Beznoska / Tobias Hentze / Katja Rietzler / Martin Werding IW-Trends No. 3 24. August 2023

The Challenges to the Sustainability of Germany’s Public Finances

The German government’s fiscal responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war in an attempt to cushion their impact have driven up the country’s general government debt-to-GDP ratio.

IW

More about this topic

Content element with id 8880 Content element with id 9713