When Care Work Costs Jobs

Career or care work?

That is the choice currently facing around 4.6 million working-age people who provide informal care. According to a study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and Prognos, this share will rise from 8.7% to 13.3% by 2045. In economic terms, this already amounts to the loss of 184,000 full-time jobs. Without better conditions, that loss would grow by nearly 25% to around 229,000 full-time equivalents by 2045.

This trend hits women particularly hard. At 63%, they make up almost two-thirds of caregivers, provide an average of six more hours of care per week than men, and reduce their working hours to provide care far more often and earlier than men do. By 2045, around 580,000 women could therefore be unable to work, or able to work only to a limited extent, because they care for relatives. This would account for three-quarters of the total loss in work hours.

As a result of demographic change, the number of people needing care will continue to rise. To prevent informal caregiving from drawing even more skilled workers out of the labor market in the coming years, the study calls for policy reforms such as a modern family care allowance, greater flexibility in workplaces through options such as individualized working hours, and reliable opportunities to return to work.

These topics also caught our attention:

• AI surge in HR: According to an Indeed survey, German HR departments are receiving more applications,  with one in three now created using AI. Most companies consequently use software to automatically screen applications, and fewer than half of HR teams manually review rejected candidates afterward.

• Longer commutes due to working from home: Office workers’ commutes have increased from 27.5 to 32 kilometers since 2019 (up 17% for jobs that allow working from home), as an IAB study shows. When changing jobs, employees even accept an average of ten extra kilometers of travel.

• Hidden job market: Many positions are filled without ever being advertised. As Handelsblatt reports, many job seekers can uncover these opportunities through targeted speculative applications, active networking, and well-maintained LinkedIn profiles, bypassing the intense competition of conventional application processes.

This text first appeared as an editorial in the weekly politjobs newsletter. If you would like to receive this newsletter with the latest jobs in politics directly by email every Wednesday, you can subscribe here .