OPINIONVIDEOPUBLIC SPENDING AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE

State spending ratio 50.3 per cent, 5,475,100 employees: the state is growing – and the railway is not even counted

Thirty slides, 6:28 minutes (MP4, 21 MB): the state spending ratio, public service employees, the CO₂ price, the bureaucracy balance of the national regulatory control council and five standards. Every official figure appears with its sources in the full commentary.

By Andreas W. Herb, Founder and CEO MBG Group, Paderborn

22/10/20262 minutes read3 sources0 correctionsDisclosure

In 2025 state spending once again reached a good half of economic output: 50.3 per cent of gross domestic product.^[1] As at 30 June 2025, according to the provisional official result, 5,475,100 people worked in the public service, 95,100 more than a year earlier and 829,600 more than in 2015.^[2] What is counted is people, not full-time posts.

One discrepancy in the video that we are not letting stand: slides 4 and 5 give 50.5 per cent for 2025 and rely on a series based on Eurostat. The official figure is 50.3 per cent; for 2024 it is 49.5 rather than 49.4 and for 2023 48.4 rather than 48.1 per cent. The commentary publicly corrected this series on 21 October 2026. The discrepancies are small and do not change what the video says – but anyone who demands accuracy of politicians has to demand it of themselves first. To the correction in the commentary.

The railway is not in this figure

The 5.475 million are not everyone who is paid by the state. The public service staff statistics cover employees within the scope of civil service and pay law as well as those paid under the public collective agreements TVöD and TV-L.^[3] Deutsche Bahn AG belongs to the federal government but operates as a public limited company with its own collective agreements, and so falls outside that scope. Its employees are therefore not in the figure. That is a conclusion from how the statistics are drawn; Destatis does not name the company there expressly.

What does not follow from this: a higher state spending ratio. Spending and employees measure different things. Adding railway employees does not turn a spending ratio of 50.3 per cent into a ratio of more than 60 per cent.

The video summarises, the commentary documents: there you will find the checked series on the state spending ratio, staff, the CO₂ price and the cost of bureaucracy, where the growth in staff since 2015 comes from, and the separation between what the data support and what is the author’s position. To the commentary.

The video only loads once you start it. It does not play by itself, and it does not measure who is watching.

CHECK

What was checked before publication

All thirty slides have been viewed and checked against the commentary. The sound track was not listened to; what is said in it has not been checked here.
A discrepancy that is named in the piece: slides 4 and 5 show a state spending ratio of 50.5 per cent for 2025 from a series based on Eurostat, together with 48.6 / 48.1 / 49.4 per cent for 2022 to 2024. The official figures are 50.3 / 49.5 / 48.4 per cent; for 2022 Destatis publishes no annual value. The commentary publicly corrected this series on 21 October 2026.
Checked and matching: 5,475,100 employees in the public service as at 30 June 2025, provisional result, people rather than full-time posts. Likewise the CO₂ price from 25 euros in 2021 through 55 euros in 2025 to the auction corridor of 55 to 65 euros for 2026.
Not checked and therefore not repeated in the text: the tax on sugary drinks mentioned in the video with a cabinet paper of 14 October 2026, the plastic packaging tax and the figure of 40,400 additional employees in schools, universities, clinics and municipal day-care centres. These statements do not appear in the commentary and are not documented here.
That Deutsche Bahn AG is missing from the public service staff statistics follows from how those statistics are drawn: they cover employees within the scope of civil service and pay law and those paid under the public collective agreements TVöD and TV-L.{3} Destatis does not name Deutsche Bahn AG expressly in this context; that is a conclusion from the scope, not a statement by the office.

SOURCES

Sources

Every number in the text leads to its source. The origin is given at each entry: official, media report, trade association, institute or data portal. Titles stay in the original language, so that each document can still be found.

[1] Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), 15.01.2026
Bruttoinlandsprodukt im Jahr 2025 um 0,2 % gewachsen (Pressemitteilung Nr. 017, mit der Staatsquote 2025 von 50,3 %)
Official source↑ back to the text
[2] Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), 22.06.2026
Öffentlicher Dienst 2025: Mehr Beschäftigte in der Bildung und Kinderbetreuung (Pressemitteilung Nr. 215)
Official source↑ back to the text
[3] Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), Stand 22.10.2026
Qualitätsbericht Personalstandstatistik: Erfasst sind Beschäftigte im Wirkungsbereich eines Beamten- und Besoldungsgesetzes sowie nach öffentlichem Tarifvertrag (TVöD, TV-L)
Official source↑ back to the text

CORRECTIONS

Corrections

No corrections since publication on 22/10/2026. Every substantive change appears here with its date, reason and previous wording.

This page is opinion. Our fact checks are not.