Overview
- New figures show fewer children and lower weekly attendance hours while total staff hours rose, prompting one Austrian state to tell 20 municipalities that extra hires will no longer receive regional funding.
- That state reports an average child-to-staff ratio of 1:5 and group sizes of 16.8, well below the legal limit of 23, which it says justifies a curb on subsidies for additional personnel.
- Opposition parties and kindergarten representatives in Austria warn the cuts will raise pressure on care teams, pointing to surveys showing many early-childhood teachers are considering leaving their jobs.
- In Germany’s Thuringia, 19 daycare centres closed last year and operators expect more as the number of children under seven is projected to fall by nearly 22% by 2030.
- Thuringia approved a one-time €240 payment per child this year for small centres and proposed a €6 million merger bonus for next year, though operators and lawmakers question how the payout would work, whether mergers are legally feasible across different employers, and which ministries must implement the plan, with a broader reform signalled for the autumn.