Skilled workers in geriatric care currently earn an average wage of 28.03 euros per hour. Nursing assistants without training earn an average of 20.96 euros per hour. Compared to the previous year, their wage levels have increased by around three and a half percent. This is shown by a new evaluation published by the umbrella association of statutory health insurance (GKV) on Thursday.
After increases of around five percent in the previous year and almost nine percent in 2024, the increase has slowed down. However, the value for unskilled workers is still 50 percent higher than the statutory minimum wage, which sets the lower wage limit for unskilled workers in other industries. At the beginning of the year it was increased by 8.4 percent to 13.90 euros.
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The statistical average value also acts as a minimum wage
The new wage data is also an important factor for the debate over the care reform law, the draft of which was approved by the Federal Cabinet on Wednesday. The values determined by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds also define minimum wage requirements for care facilities that are not bound to collective agreements or church employment contract guidelines. If they do not reach the statistical average wage level in their workforce, they will lose their approval.
The nursing system's financial woes have a lot to do with the fact that these requirements have significantly increased personnel costs. On the one hand, the contributions that residents have to pay have increased by around 950 euros to more than 3,350 euros per month since 2022. On the other hand, the nursing care funds' contribution income no longer covers their expenses. The government currently expects a financial gap of almost eight billion euros for 2027.
Refinancing of high wage costs is not restricted after all
The new law is intended to close these. However, due to a number of relaxations compared to the original draft from the beginning of June, its effect for 2027 has been reduced by five to 6.25 billion euros. One of the major easing measures concerns the wage requirements and the financing of wage increases by contributors.
Previous federal governments had changed the rules several times in such a way that they accelerated the increase in nursing wages. Even before the new wage floor, which was calculated from average values, there was an industry minimum wage. It still applies and currently amounts to 16.52 euros per hour for nursing assistants. That is 19 percent more than the general minimum wage.
The original bill from June would have suspended the additional wage targets from 2022 for an initial four years. In addition, homes and services would no longer have been able to demand in their reimbursement negotiations with health insurance companies and authorities that payers automatically fully cover such additional costs. However, in the draft that has now been approved, the government has largely deleted these cuts.
Representatives of care facilities, including Caritas and Diakonie, welcomed this on Thursday. They emphasized that they must be able to rely on the full refinancing of wage increases. The Verdi union, which rejects all savings plans, also sees this as a good “improvement”. In order to cover the additional costs, Verdi is calling for the next steps to be to abolish private nursing care insurance and also to raise social contributions on rental and interest income.
The government has included the reason for the current exit from the expensive wage requirements in its new draft law: For years, nursing wages have “increased significantly more than the minimum nursing wage, wages in the economy as a whole and than the general price level,” she writes. The “legislative goal” of higher nursing care wages has “clearly been achieved”.
