On balance, seven million people will leave the labour market by 2035. But blaming people for getting old and going into well-earned retirement makes little sense. Instead, politicians and many company managers need to take a good look at themselves and ask whether they have not been too short-sighted in recent years with state-subsidised early retirement schemes and the retirement age of 63.

The labour shortage was already apparent, demographic developments are relatively easy to predict. This applies to the economy as a whole and also at company level. All measures that exacerbated this trend were already questionable at the time. This also applies to planning in the education sector, where there are now complaints about teacher shortages in every federal state. Of course, we could have tried to counteract the low birth rates a few decades ago. However, this is admittedly a challenging endeavour and one that many other countries have failed with. In my opinion, however, the importance of integrating people from abroad into our society and the labour market has been all too neglected.

Chief Economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank

On a personal level, there are a few things you can do to cope with the new circumstances. For example, don't mess with tradespeople – but don't mess with doctors, carers or gardeners either, you will lose out.

The economic policy concepts to alleviate the labour shortage are well known. It's about targeted immigration, better childcare facilities for young children and, of course, everything to do with education is central. But the fact that many doctors spend around half their time on administrative tasks also shows how urgent it is to finally get serious about reducing bureaucracy.

Think of Agenda 2010: it was simply unacceptable at the time that the average unemployment rate in the second half of the 1990s was an almost unimaginable 9%, and that the tax burden and non-wage labour costs continued to rise. The current discussion, which is not always constructive, is possibly part of this maturing process, which then enables the reforms to be implemented.

At first glance, of course, this is not obvious, given the many disputes within the coalition. But it is also about the mood within the population. Let's take the railway for example. Everyone complains that you can't rely on the railway, that you can't plan with it. However, unlike in the past, everyone has probably now realised that these delays have to do with the fact that too little has been done to maintain the rail network in recent decades. And I found it interesting that, despite the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the debt brake, the investment plans for modernising the rail network have remained unchanged. In the past, this would probably have been axed.

The labour shortage means, among other things, that people are finding jobs that were previously denied this opportunity. Employers are changing their thinking. Some catering businesses or physiotherapists are recruiting staff from Spain or other countries without much knowledge of German. Ultimately, this is also a good development, as it leads to greater social participation. In addition, people who have a job stay on the ball professionally, and companies have an incentive to train their employees. This curbs the loss of productivity growth that is usually observed in the economy as a whole when there is a shortage of labour.

I also see an opportunity for Germany here. The pressure to innovate is increasing considerably to replace the missing labour force in certain areas. This will not necessarily be in the nursing sector but administrative processes in this sector. In addition, this process is already starting in the retail sector with automated checkouts, and in the IT sector, you can also see that programmers are being supported very effectively by AI applications. All of this can help to ease the situation, but such adaptation processes usually take quite a long time.

In view of high inflation, we have seen significantly higher wage settlements in recent years than was previously the case. However, I believe that the ratios will shift permanently without this necessarily leading to a wage-price spiral. Labour has become scarcer relative to capital, and this scarcity will continue to increase, which is why labour will be paid more in the future. The perceived higher willingness to strike in many sectors of the economy emphasises this. Ultimately, this means that many companies will no longer be able to increase their profits quite as much, while they will have to be somewhat more generous with wages.

It is premature to stir up panic with the buzzwords deindustrialisation and loss of competitiveness. In principle, other industrialised countries are suffering from similar problems. That doesn't buy us much, but at least a little time. That is why the developments should be seen as an opportunity. The result could be full employment, a better level of education, Internet access even in remote regions, greater integration of disadvantaged groups and an actual decrease in bureaucracy. In short, we would become a country that is once again at the forefront in terms of social stability and technical expertise.

The interview was conducted by Stephan Lorz.