Germans told they should retire at 70

German retirement age should be raised to 70, two of the country’s leading think tanks urged today.

They said the move was inevitable due to low birthrates and the ballooning costs of the cradle-to-grave welfare system.

Germany has already decided to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67.

“If we look at the higher life expectancy and the shrinking birth rate in Germany, retirement age 70 will have to be introduced over time,” Michael Huether, chief of the conservative IW, said.

The proposal echoes a similar assessment by the European Commission which said last month that the 27 member states need to raise their retirement ages to 70 by 2060.

The topic is on the agenda everywhere in Europe, but no country is yet planning to go beyond 68.

Klaus Zimmermann of the liberal DIW said that “raising the life work time to 70 years is the most humane way to deal with the challenge.”

Many Germans bristle at the idea of working more years.

“I’m already worn out now – how do they expect us to work several years longer?” asked Norbert Schmittbauer, a 50-year-old building worker in Berlin.

“My body hurts so much and I start working every day at five in the morning,” he said. His assessment of the think tank proposal: “Insane.”

Many critics agree, adding that there are also too few jobs for the elderly, leaving them no choice but to retire early.

The German group VdK which is lobbying for retirees’ interests said today only about a fifth of those unemployed at age 60 or above currently find a job again, and only every second business in Germany even employs anyone above the age of 50.

VdK chief Ulrike Mascher said the idea to push retirement back even further to 70 is “utopian.” She added that a quarter of German employees aged 55 to 59 need to retire early because they were too sick to work.

Benjamin Ladiges, a 32-year-old Berlin lawyer, said that while some jobs allow later retirement, professions with physical strains should be exempted.

“For some professions, especially desk jobs, it may make sense to push the retirement age, for others it, especially physical work, it is not an option,” he said.

The debate is complicated by the fact that Germany’s shrinking workforce means the nation will face an increasingly acute shortage of skilled labour in some sectors – despite generally strong resistance in the nation to higher immigration.

The suggestion of retirement at 70 has stoked an already fierce debate about an unpopular law, passed in 2007, to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 from 2012 through 2029.

The Social Democrats, then part of the government coalition, backed the law at the time, but took a beating for it in the 2009 general election and have since raised questions about sticking with the plan.

The government has defended the law saying the job market for the elderly is improving. But Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle has made it clear there are currently no plans to go beyond 67.

All of Europe is facing the same trend of ageing populations. While there are currently four people working for each retiree, projections indicate that by 2060 on average there will be only two.

However, responses to the politically hot topic have been very diverse across the EU, and retirement ages are not at all uniform.

While the French government has struggled to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, Britain is talking about plans to go for 68 by 2040.

Spain and the Netherlands have debated raising their retirement ages from 65 to 67, whereas Portugal and Denmark want to stick with 65 for the time being.

Sweden has a flexible retirement age which allows people to retire as early as 61, but as late as 67.

The Christian Democratic party, a small member of the governing coalition, has proposed allowing the window to be kept open until 70, arguing that it is important for the nation’s future development.

“But it is also necessary that the elderly get more space to elaborate themselves with a flexible pension age, have the opportunity to scale down successively, the possibility to change jobs and start up their own businesses,” the party has said.