BERLIN, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The average wage of full-time nurses employed in German hospitals and care homes in 2021 was 34 percent higher than ten years ago, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Wednesday.
Earnings of employees in the country's care sector had "risen more strongly over the past ten years than in the economy as a whole," Destatis noted.
Between 2010 and 2020, the number of employees working in hospital nursing care in Germany rose by 18 percent to around 486,000.
"The demand for labor in nursing care has been growing for years," Destatis noted. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the "skilled labor shortage and the working conditions in nursing care have come even more into focus."
The German government has already approved a draft law with a total budget of 1 billion euros (1.06 billion U.S. dollars) to reward nursing staff in hospitals and care facilities for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. ■