Salaries in Germany in 2026: fewer jobs, but has pay fallen?

No, salaries in Germany have not fallen. Jobs are harder to find than at any time since 2016, outside the 2020 lockdowns, but pay is still rising: gross wages were 4.1% higher in the second quarter of 2026 than a year earlier, and 1.5% higher after inflation. What has changed is how many doors are open, not what is paid behind them.

That is the short answer from the official statistics. Below is the longer one, and then something the official figures cannot show: what employers write about pay in the job ads that are open right now, from Expado's own count.

How many jobs are open: from 1.93 million to about 1 million

The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) surveys employers every quarter on how many positions they are trying to fill. In the second quarter of 2022, at the height of the post-pandemic hiring wave, the figure was 1.93 million. In the second quarter of 2026 it was about 1 million: 11% fewer than the quarter before, 3% fewer than a year before, and, in the words of the IAB, the lowest level since 2016 apart from the 2020 lockdowns.

If your search feels slower than your friends' searches did two or three years ago, this is most of the reason. It is the same market with about half the openings.

What happened to pay: a real-terms dip, then a recovery

2022	Real wages fell 4.0%. Pay rose, but inflation rose much faster (Destatis).
2024	Real wages rose 3.1%, the strongest increase since the series began in 2008 (Destatis).
2025	Gross wages +4.2%, prices +2.2%, real wages +1.9%. Purchasing power was then almost back to its 2019 level (Destatis).
Q2 2026	Gross wages +4.1% on a year earlier, prices +2.5%, real wages +1.5% (Destatis).

Two details in the latest release matter for job seekers. Among full-time employees, the lowest earning fifth saw the largest rise (6.7%) and the highest earning fifth the smallest (3.3%). And the gap between sectors is wide: energy supply (+7.6%) and finance and insurance (+7.5%) at the top, professional, scientific and technical services at the bottom (+1.8%).

So the honest summary is not "salaries are falling". It is: after the inflation years, the average worker's buying power has only just got back to where it was in 2019, pay keeps rising a little faster than prices, and there are far fewer openings to compete for.

What job ads say about pay today

Official statistics describe people who already have a job. They say nothing about the ads you are reading. Expado reads the career pages of German employers every night, so we counted what those ads say about pay: on 28 September 2026, 669 of 14,744 open roles (4.5%) stated a salary, and only 79 of 788 employers stated one in any of their ads.

One caution before the numbers: stated salaries are concentrated. Five employers account for 48% of all the salaries we found, so treat the figures in the box below as a view of the employers who publish pay, not of the whole market.

Why roles without German show higher salaries

In our count, roles that do not ask for German have a typical stated salary of €85,000, against €50,500 for ads written in German. That does not mean German costs you money. It is a difference in the kind of job: most English-language ads that state pay are engineering, software and data roles at international employers, while German-language ads that state pay are more often in sales, the trades and customer service, where tariff-style pay bands are published as a matter of course. Compare like with like: the role table matters more than the language line.

The Blue Card line

The 2026 EU Blue Card needs a salary of at least €50,700 (or €45,934.20 in shortage occupations and for recent graduates). 46% of the salaries stated in open ads clear the standard line, and among engineering, software and data roles it is 79 of 86. If you are applying from outside the EU, a stated salary tells you before the first interview whether the offer can carry your permit. More on the two routes in Blue Card or Opportunity Card.

Why so few ads state pay, and what is changing

Germany has no general rule that a job ad must state a salary. The EU Pay Transparency Directive changes the direction of travel: it requires employers to tell applicants the starting pay or its range before the interview, and bans asking candidates about their current salary. Member states had to transpose it by 7 June 2026. Germany did not meet that date; a government commission has made proposals and a German law is still being drafted (Grant Thornton on what applies in the meantime).

In practice: asking for the salary range early is becoming normal rather than awkward. If an ad does not state one, ask in the first call. The answer tells you whether the rest of the process is worth your time.

How to use this in your search

• Expect a slower search than two years ago, and apply more widely: the openings halved, the pay did not.
• Use the role table below as a sanity check for an offer, not as a target. The ranges are wide, and sales figures often include commission.
• On Expado, the Salary stated filter shows only the roles whose ad states pay, and every stated salary is compared with the Blue Card line for you.

Figures from ads are yearly gross as the ad states them; monthly figures are multiplied by 12. We count only amounts next to a currency and a pay word, and leave out hourly rates, net pay and "up to" figures. Official figures are from Destatis and the IAB, linked below.