Nursing staff in Hamburg: Highest wages in the country, but expensive for residents!

Nursing staff in Hamburg: Highest wages in the country, but expensive for residents!

In recent years, pay for nursing staff in Germany has improved significantly, this year especially in Hamburg. The average hourly wage rose from 23.20 euros to 24.55 euros compared to the previous year, as Welt reports. This puts Hamburg at the top of the federal states, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia, where the salary is 24.21 euros per hour, and Rhineland-Palatinate with 24.01 euros. In contrast, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has the lowest hourly wage at just 22.44 euros.

At the national level, average hourly wages in nursing rose by 4.9 percent to 23.70 euros. These figures come from the umbrella association of statutory health insurance companies (GKV), which now also states that the wage increases will result in parallel movements in the personal contributions for nursing home residents. The head of the association, Oliver Blatt, said that fairer pay was important, but at the same time the costs for nursing home residents were increasing, for example by around 100 euros per month, only part of which can be absorbed by the nursing care insurance companies through relief surcharges.

Increasing personal contributions and additional expenses

The rising wages also cause an increase in additional spending on nursing care insurance, which is estimated at around 260 million euros per year. However, long-term care insurance is limited to only covering part of the costs of care and support. The main factors that contribute to the costs are, above all, personnel costs. Since 2022, care facilities have had to ensure that their employees are treated fairly in terms of collective agreements or similar said the Swabian.

The additional costs for those in need of care also include accommodation, meals and investment costs for the homes. The responsible associations do not want to take this lightly. Eugen Brysch from the German Foundation for Patient Protection pointed out that these developments have an impact on over a million people in need of care who are cared for by outpatient services. What is particularly worrying is that the amount of support for these people in need of care has been frozen.

Improvements in wages

Wages for nursing assistants without training rose by 5.2 percent to 20.26 euros per hour, while assistants with at least one year of training recorded an increase of 5.7 percent to 22.62 euros. Nursing professionals can look forward to an increase of 4.4 percent to 27.06 euros per hour. However, the current wage increase of 4.9 percent is lower than last year, when the increase was 9 percent. Regional differences in wages can be seen, for example, in Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony, where higher increases were achieved, while moderate increases were recorded in Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia.

The challenges in the care sector are complex and require a rethink in the financing and support of care facilities in order to sustainably improve the situation of employees and those in need of care.