Signite's Magazine

The number of people in need of long-term care in Germany has continued to rise as expected. According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), 4.96 million people in Germany were in need of long-term care at the end of 2021. In December 2019, there were still 4.13 million. The vast majority of these people in […]

If you have decided to work as a physiotherapist, you want to actively help people so that they can live their lives without pain and discomfort. This brings satisfaction and is one of the main reasons for choosing this profession. There is currently a great need for physiotherapists throughout Germany, and there will be an […]

What is in store for you? Anyone who wants to work as a nursing professional in Germany in the future must, in addition to proving their professional competences (through a knowledge test or adaptation course), also take a compulsory language test. This means that a normal B2 language certificate (e.g. from the Goethe Institute or […]

The Federal Ministry of Health is currently working on a fundamental reform of the health care system. The focus is primarily on hospitals and their financing. But other ideas are also being discussed. One proposal is that there should be hospitals that are run entirely by nurses. Even if this would go very far, the […]

The Federal Cabinet approved the draft of the Nursing Competence Act yesterday, Wednesday. The aim of the act is to involve specialist nursing staff more closely in patient care and to make better use of their skills. This would enhance the status of their work and motivate them. In addition, doctors would be relieved of […]

In many sectors in Germany, there is a lack of qualified personnel. The Centre of Competence for Securing Skilled Workers (KOFA) of the employer-related German Economic Institute (IW) has published a new study on this topic. According to the calculations, the sector most affected is healthcare. According to the study, the greatest bottlenecks in this […]

The number of people in need of care in Germany has risen much more sharply in recent years than the number of people employed in the care sector. It is also taking longer and longer for vacancies in hospitals and nursing homes to be filled, while at the same time unemployment among nurses and care […]

The renowned Bertelsmann Foundation has published a new study according to which Germany needs hundreds of thousands of immigrants per year to meet its labour needs in the coming decades. Around 280,000 international workers would have to start each year until 2040 in order to prevent the potential of the labour force from collapsing. The […]

The law was passed in 2015. It was to have been implemented from 2020. In 2023, Bavaria was the first to dare to introduce the language test for physiotherapists, among others… But since no other federal state did anything, the introduction of this test, which has long been mandatory for human medicine throughout Germany (at […]

Berlin is introducing a specialised language test for nursing staff with foreign qualifications. This makes it the latest federal state to implement the law, which was passed years ago, albeit with a delay. The specialised language test at B2 level is intended to ensure that the necessary language skills are available to work competently and […]

There are a number of accounts on Instagram that you can use to learn or refresh your knowledge of your nursing profession. You already know everything? Great! Then you can use the posts to improve your German as a foreign nurse. Most of the information is very compact and covers a medical or nursing topic. […]

The number of occupations in short supply in Germany fell slightly in 2023, but remains at a very high level. This is the result of the annual analysis of the shortage of skilled workers by the Federal Employment Agency (BA), which has now been published. Shortages in filling vacancies are evident in 183 of the […]

In a nationwide raid, the customs authorities searched for evidence of social security fraud and illegal employment in the care sector. The action was directed against a complex of companies that provide care staff for 24-hour care in private households, according to the public prosecutor’s office in Dortmund and the main customs office in Münster. […]

The shortage of skilled labour is affecting many sectors in Germany. It has now also reached the traditional branch of mechanical engineering. At the start of the new training year, many apprenticeship places remain unfilled. This is because there is a lack of qualified applicants, according to the industry association VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und […]

Germany’s Federal Statistical Office has published new statistics on the recognition of foreign professional qualifications. According to the figures, the number of positive recognition procedures increased from 52,300 in 2022 to 65,300 in 2023 (up 25 per cent). This is 11% more than in the previous year. Compared to 2016, when Destatis recorded the recognition […]

The German government has decided to introduce a new nursing assistant education programme. The aim of the bill is to ensure that nursing assistants in future undergo a nationally standardised, appropriately remunerated training. Because Germany is divided into 16 federal states, which are allowed to have a say in educational matters, the introduction of such […]