The head of Germany’s Federal Employment Agency has warned that AI will leave the federal republic with around 800.000 fewer jobs, but is likely to create the same number of positions.
Nahles warns AI will cause more job losses
“We predict that over the next 15 years, about 800.000 jobs in Germany will be lost due to AI, but a similar number will also be created,” Andrea Nahles told Handelsblatt.
The figures are based on recent research by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), which is part of the Federal Employment Agency. “Some sectors will be hit harder by the job losses, such as business service providers and analytical roles in insurance and banking.”
Nahles added that other jobs, such as skilled trades, were currently “proving to be quite resilient” in the face of the AI boom, but that it was wrong to assume that job losses would affect highly skilled workers in particular. “Fundamentally, no one is immune anymore,” Nahles said.
While nobody is immune, some are more vulnerable than others. The IAB study found that, in “AI-affected occupations”, full-time employment had declined by 1,2 percentage points among people aged 20 to 29. If a company is cutting jobs, entry-level jobs are often on the chopping block.
However, IAB researcher Oliver Schlenker concluded that, “Above all, the economic weakness of recent years has contributed to declining employment of young employees, while the influence of AI has likely played a rather subordinate role overall.” Of course, the two factors are not mutually exclusive.
But Germany still needs immigration, says Nahles
Nahles urged that Germany shouldn’t pin hopes on plugging its record-high worker shortage with an army of robots. Alongside the AI job-loss and job-creation projections, the country is still losing a net total of around 500.000 workers per year due to an ageing population, and seeing its lowest net immigration levels in a while.
“That is why we must also attract skilled workers from countries outside the EU,” Nahles insisted. “To do this, we finally need the promised “Work and Stay” agency, which will make us competitive with other immigration destinations. We must become more modern, more digital and faster.”
Plans for the “Work and Stay” agency were initially announced as part of the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition agreement in May 2025, and approved in October last year. The site has yet to go live, and currently has a notice explaining that “implementation will take place gradually over the coming years”.