The number of people of retirement age in Germany will rise by 22 percent by 2035, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Thursday.

The number of people aged 67 or over in the country will go up to 20 million, a 22 percent increase from 2020, the first medium-term population projection conducted by Destatis showed.

The head of the Federal Employment Agency, Detlef Scheele, was quoted in the media as saying in August that Germany needed 400,000 new workers per year to replenish its labor force. The aging population was the main reason behind the shortage of workers, Scheele said.

The shrinking workforce threatens the sustainability of the pension system and a panel of advisers for the Economy Ministry in June proposed to lift the retirement age from the current 65 years to 68 by 2042.

The retirement age will be gradually raised to 67 by 2031.

The growth of Germany’s population came to a halt in 2020 after eight years of modest increase. According to Destatis, 83.2 million people were living in Germany at the end of 2020, compared to 80.3 million in 2011.

Meanwhile, the number of immigrants has been on the decline. In 2019, immigrants outnumbered emigrants by around 327,000 in Germany, down from 400,000 in 2018. It was the fourth annual decrease in a row, according to Destatis. Enditem

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