Germany’s population fell in 2025 for the first time since 2020, dropping by 110,000 people to 83.5 million, according to Destatis figures released in June 2026. The decline was not caused by a sudden crisis. It was caused by arithmetic that has been building for decades: a birth deficit of 352,000, meaning far more deaths than births, that net migration of 235,000 people, itself down sharply from 430,000 the year before, was no longer large enough to offset.
Germany’s Workforce Is Entering a Major Demographic Transition
Destatis presented its 16th coordinated population projection in Berlin on December 11, 2025, and the headline finding was unambiguous: in every one of its calculation variants, Germany’s working-age population, defined as people aged 20 to 66, will shrink. In 2024 that group numbered 51.2 million. By 2070, depending on how immigration and fertility evolve, it could fall to somewhere between 41.2 million under moderate net migration and 37.1 million if net migration stays low, or as high as 47.2 million only under a scenario combining a significant fertility rebound with high immigration.
“The baby boomer generation is currently in the middle of transitioning from working life to retirement. Much smaller birth cohorts will follow,” said Karsten Lummer, head of the Federal Statistical Office’s population department, at the December 2025 presentation. That single sentence captures the mechanism driving nearly every figure in this article: Germany’s large postwar birth cohorts are retiring faster than smaller subsequent generations can replace them in the labor force.
How Old Is Germany’s Population?
Germany’s population stood at 83,467,117 at the end of 2025, according to Destatis’s most recent official count, with fertility at 1.38 children per woman as of 2023, well below the 2.1 replacement level. The share of the population aged 60 and above rose to 31 percent by the end of 2025, up 0.5 percentage points in a single year, while every other broad age group either shrank or stayed flat.
Just one in five Germans was 67 or older in 2024. Destatis projects that share will rise to nearly one in four, 23 to 24 percent, by 2035, and to 25 to 27 percent by 2038. In absolute terms, the number of people at or above the standard retirement age of 67 is projected to climb from roughly 16.7 million in 2024 to between 20.5 and 21.3 million by 2038, an increase of 3.8 to 4.5 million people in just fourteen years.
Germany’s Age Structure, Selected Years
| Metric | 2024 | 2035 (projected) | 2038 (projected) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share aged 67 and over | ~20% | 23–24% | 25–27% |
| People aged 67 and over | ~16.7 million | — | 20.5–21.3 million |
| Working-age population (20–66) | 51.2 million | declining in all variants | declining in all variants |
| Old-age dependency ratio (per 100 working-age) | 33 | — | rising toward 43–61 by 2070 |
The Baby Boomer Retirement Wave
The scale of the retirement wave is large enough to be measurable in real time. The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) has projected that 4.7 million existing employees will leave Germany’s labor force between 2024 and 2028 alone through retirement, a pace the country’s current inflow of younger workers and immigrants is not on track to match.
Destatis’s own dependency-ratio math illustrates the same pressure from a different angle: for every 100 people of working age in Germany today, there are 33 people of pension age. In the most favorable of Destatis’s scenarios, that ratio rises to 43 per 100 by 2070; in the least favorable, it could reach 61 per 100, nearly double today’s burden on the working-age population.
Which Industries Face the Greatest Demographic Pressure?
Germany already had roughly 1.57 million unfilled jobs as of a 2024 federal forecast, concentrated heavily in manufacturing, skilled trades, healthcare, construction, and logistics, sectors where an aging, physically demanding workforce is retiring faster than apprenticeship and training pipelines can replace it.
A separate federal research institute (BBSR) forecast released in June 2024 projected Germany’s working-age population would fall by 2 percent by 2045 even as the overall population grows modestly through immigration, while the 67-and-over population grows by 13.6 percent, or 2.2 million people, over the same period, a divergence between the group that produces economic output and the group that draws pension and health benefits from it.
Can Older Workers Offset the Labor Gap?
Destatis data shows labor force participation among Germans aged 60 and above has risen substantially over the past two decades, as later retirement ages, phased-retirement options, and rule changes have kept more workers employed past traditional cutoffs. This shift has meaningfully slowed, but not reversed, the shrinkage of the effective labor force, since participation gains among older workers are running up against the much larger arithmetic of shrinking birth cohorts entering the workforce behind them.
Immigration as a Workforce Strategy
Destatis’s own analysis is direct on this point: “even high immigration cannot prevent a decline in the working-age population,” though the agency notes immigration remains critical to slowing that decline. The foreign-background share of Germany’s population rose from approximately 20 percent in 2010 to 31.1 percent by 2025, driven by two major waves, more than a million asylum seekers arriving mainly from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan after 2015, and more than a million Ukrainian refugees following Russia’s 2022 invasion, layered on top of a steady background flow of EU labor migration, principally from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Italy.
Immigration’s demographic weight now extends into Germany’s birth statistics directly: 27.75 percent of babies born in Germany in 2023 were born to mothers without German citizenship. Without the post-2015 rise in immigration, Destatis analysis indicates Germany’s total population would have declined well before the 2025 downturn actually recorded.
Even so, 2025’s numbers show the limits of that strategy under current conditions. Net migration fell sharply to 235,000 in 2025 from 430,000 in 2024, a drop large enough that it could no longer offset a birth deficit of 352,000, producing the first annual population decline since 2020.
Productivity, Automation and Artificial Intelligence
German policymakers and economists increasingly frame automation and productivity-enhancing technology as a partial offset to a shrinking labor supply, particularly in manufacturing, Germany’s traditional economic strength. Technology can raise output per worker, but it is not treated by Destatis or the DIW as a full substitute for the sheer number of available workers, particularly in labor-intensive sectors such as healthcare and elder care, where demand is rising precisely because of the aging population that automation is meant to help offset.
Regional Differences in Germany’s Workforce
Germany’s demographic transition is not uniform across the country. Destatis’s regional breakdown accompanying the 16th projection shows the overall population in western German states holding roughly stable at best through 2070, while eastern states, already older on average today, are projected to see population decline of between 14 and 30 percent over the same horizon.
The 2025 annual data already shows this divide in miniature: eastern states saw population fall by 0.5 percent (57,000 people) in a single year, more than triple the 0.1 percent (68,000 people) decline recorded in western states. City states, including Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen, could see continued growth if immigration remains elevated, but even they face possible decline if inflows slow further.
Germany’s Workforce Outlook Through 2035 and Beyond
Destatis is explicit that its 16th projection’s scenarios are not predictions but boundaries built on differing assumptions about fertility, life expectancy, and net migration. Total population in 2070 ranges from a low scenario near 63.9 million to a considerably higher figure under strong immigration and fertility assumptions, while the working-age population range, 37.1 to 47.2 million depending on scenario, is wide enough that Germany’s actual 2070 labor supply could differ by roughly 10 million people depending on which path plays out. What remains constant across every single scenario Destatis modeled is that the working-age population declines at least through the mid-2030s, driven by an age structure that is already fixed and cannot be altered by any policy decision made today.
Conclusion
Germany’s 2025 population decline is best read not as a single bad year but as the leading edge of a demographic transition that Destatis’s own modeling shows cannot be reversed by any policy lever available today. The baby boomer generation’s retirement is a fixed event already written into Germany’s age structure; what remains genuinely uncertain, and what will determine whether the working-age population lands closer to 47 million or 37 million by 2070, is how much immigration and fertility recover from their current levels in the years ahead.
Key Findings
- Germany’s population fell in 2025 for the first time since 2020, down 110,000 to 83.5 million, as net migration of 235,000 failed to offset a birth deficit of 352,000.
- The share of Germans aged 67 and older is projected to rise from about 20 percent in 2024 to 23 to 24 percent by 2035 and 25 to 27 percent by 2038, adding 3.8 to 4.5 million pension-age people in that span.
- Germany’s working-age population, 51.2 million in 2024, is projected to decline in every one of Destatis’s projection scenarios, potentially falling as low as 37.1 million by 2070 under low-immigration assumptions.
- The DIW projects 4.7 million existing employees will leave Germany’s labor force between 2024 and 2028 through retirement alone.
- Eastern German states face far steeper projected population decline, 14 to 30 percent by 2070, than western states, which are expected to remain roughly stable.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why is Germany’s workforce shrinking?
Germany’s large postwar baby boomer generation is retiring in large numbers while the smaller generations born after them are not large enough to replace them in the 20-to-66 working-age population, a pattern confirmed across every scenario in Destatis’s December 2025 population projection.
2. How serious is Germany’s labor shortage?
Germany had approximately 1.57 million unfilled jobs as of 2024, concentrated in manufacturing, skilled trades, healthcare, and construction, with the DIW projecting a further 4.7 million existing workers will retire between 2024 and 2028.
3. Can immigration offset population aging in Germany?
Immigration has been the primary driver of any population growth in Germany over the past decade and has slowed the decline in the working-age population, but Destatis states plainly that even high immigration cannot prevent that decline outright.
4. What share of Germany’s population is 65 or older?
By the end of 2025, 31 percent of Germany’s population was 60 or above; roughly one in five was 67 or older in 2024, a share projected to rise to about a quarter by 2035.
5. Did Germany’s population actually shrink in 2025?
Yes. Destatis reported the population fell by 110,000 to 83.5 million at the end of 2025, the first annual decline since 2020, as a 352,000 birth deficit outpaced net migration of 235,000.
6. What is Germany’s old-age dependency ratio?
As of the most recent Destatis figures, there are 33 people of pension age for every 100 people of working age; that ratio is projected to rise to between 43 and 61 per 100 by 2070 depending on future fertility and migration.
7. Which German regions are aging fastest?
Eastern German states, already older on average, are projected to see population declines of 14 to 30 percent by 2070, compared with roughly stable populations projected for western states.
8. What is Germany’s fertility rate?
Germany’s total fertility rate stood at 1.38 children per woman in 2023, well below the 2.1 replacement level, contributing to more deaths than births in Germany every year since 1972.
9. How many babies born in Germany have foreign-born mothers?
In 2023, 27.75 percent of babies born in Germany were born to mothers without German citizenship, reflecting both the size and the younger age structure of Germany’s immigrant population.
10. Will automation solve Germany’s labor shortage?
Automation and productivity gains are expected to help offset some of the labor shortfall, particularly in manufacturing, but are not treated by Destatis or German economic researchers as a full substitute for the declining number of available workers, especially in labor-intensive sectors like elder care.
Sources
- Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis), 16th coordinated population projection, press conference and release, December 11, 2025
- Destatis, current population figures and 2025 annual population change release, June 2026
- German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), labor force retirement projections, 2025
- Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), working-age population forecast, June 2024
- Wikipedia, “Demographics of Germany,” citing Destatis Bevölkerungsstand data
- IndexBox, Germany population decline 2025 analysis, citing Destatis, June 2026
