Letter from Berlin
After years of struggling to hire qualified staff, are German day-cares now struggling to find… babies? The decline in birth rates in Germany, which has accelerated since 2022, has had very real effects on childcare facilities. In some major cities and regions, it has become increasingly common for these centers to be unable to fill all their available spots. Facing potential closures, they have been forced to come up with new strategies to appeal to families.
«Up until last year, our main concern was finding qualified staff because we were expanding nationwide and facing recruitment difficulties,» explained Mario Weiss, spokesperson for the Fröbel group, which operates 250 day-cares in nearly every Land (state) in Germany. «What we used to invest in staff recruitment, we now increasingly invest in recruiting families.»
In eastern Germany, and now also in some major western cities such as Frankfurt, Bremen or Münster, Kitas (daycares) that were once accustomed to turning children away or managing long waiting lists have suddenly found themselves with a shortage of babies. They have been stepping up their efforts, distributing flyers, organizing open houses and running awareness campaigns.
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