What is it like to be a civil servant in Germany?

In Germany, civil servants are also a highly sought-after profession. Currently, the number of civil servants in Germany exceeds 1.8 million. In Germany, becoming a civil servant also means a stable job and generous remuneration. Once hired, you will work 40 hours a week, enjoy 13 months of monthly salary and 30 days of paid leave per year, and will not be fired easily. It is a veritable "iron rice bowl". The amount of taxes and various statutory insurance premiums in Germany is not low. Civil servants do not need to pay pension, medical and unemployment insurance, but they can enjoy pensions and medical subsidies. Unlike other countries where civil servants are recruited through a unified examination, Germany adopts on-demand recruitment. If there is a vacancy in a civil servant position in an organization, the recruitment information will first be published in the news media. Then the competent department organizes examinations in accordance with the law and selects the best candidates based on their scores. The primary selection process for federal government civil service recruitment consists of a written examination and an interview. The written test is mostly administrative test questions, testing the candidate's comprehensive logical ability; the interview will test common sense questions related to public service, such as opinions on the local government where they are located. After passing the interview, the selected candidates will receive a month of training in Berlin. In addition to studying the Civil Service Code and the regulations of various departments, they also need to conduct simulation project training (simulation planning of some specific municipal projects). After completing the training, candidates will face the final round of elimination: job fairs organized by various federal government departments. Only by being selected by a specific employing department can one eventually become a civil servant. About 30% of students in German universities are interested in becoming civil servants. In a sluggish economic environment, civil servant positions are undoubtedly more stable. Of course, many young Germans believe that civil service jobs lack challenges, promotions are slow, and incomes are not high. They are more likely to work in large companies or start their own businesses. According to statistics from the German Civil Servants Association in January 2017, the monthly salary of junior civil servants is about 2,000 euros, the intermediate level is about 3,000 euros, the senior level is about 4,000 euros, and the highest can reach 8,000 to tens of thousands of euros. (German skilled workers with the same length of service generally have higher wages than civil servants.) Only after retirement will the advantages of civil servants be truly realized. According to statistics from the German magazine "Manager", the average monthly pension for a civil servant with 40 years of service is 3,000 euros. The average monthly pension for an ordinary worker with 45 years of service is only 1,314 euros, less than half that of a civil servant. However, the German government has been streamlining government agencies and downsizing the civil service in recent years. The traditional state-owned communications sector was corporatized and privatized. For example, in companies such as Deutsche Telekom, their employees are no longer part of the civil service establishment. Civil servants who enjoy the "iron rice bowl" only account for 40% of all employees in Germany's public service departments, and the remaining 60% are ordinary contract personnel. From 1991 to 2015, the German civil service has shrunk by 18%. When dealing with issues such as the increase in immigration, Germany's public service departments have obviously insufficient staff, with a gap of up to 180,000 people. Not only that, the aging trend of the German civil service is also increasingly obvious. Currently, only 18.8% of civil servants are under the age of 34, and 30.8% are over the age of 55. In 20 years, the proportion of civil servants over 45 years old will reach 57%.