The rural area could be the Kampenwand in the distance, or the Wendelstein over there. But the view of the immediate neighborhood promises something different: a fitness studio, a copy shop, a remainder market and, in front of it, dozens of numberless cars in the used car dealership’s squares. There are e-charging stations in front of the door and everything inside is brand new too, lots of glass, fresh indoor plants, height-adjustable desks. Even two red sofas to retreat to with the laptop.
The new branch office of the government of Upper Bavaria on the edge of a Rosenheim industrial park will initially offer up to one hundred jobs. The move is the latest result of the Bavaria-wide relocation of authorities, with which the state government has been trying to strengthen rural areas since 2015. In any case, she sees herself on the right track and is now only reaping isolated objections from experts and affected civil servants.
With the branch office in Rosenheim and the branch in Ingolstadt, which opened two weeks earlier, the state government is initially strengthening two cities that are already booming and in which, for example, living has long been becoming more and more expensive. And it may indirectly strengthen the metropolis of Munich, because according to Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) at the opening on Monday, all of this also serves “to relieve the Munich metropolitan area” with its rising rents, heavy traffic and the growing shortage of skilled workers.
District President Konrad Schober sees “advantages in recruiting personnel” with the branch offices. In this way, his authority can recruit staff from Salzburg to southern Middle Franconia. For the time being, the employees do not have to decide on a location, but can also log in on a daily or weekly basis. This peacekeeping freedom will only come to an end with the decision as to which departments will move completely to Ingolstadt or Rosenheim. 500 posts are to be created in each of the two cities by 2030, with 600 remaining in Munich.
As far as the relocation of authorities is concerned, the government of Upper Bavaria is a special case. It can hardly be relocated to the Fichtelgebirge or the northern Upper Palatinate. In addition, Ingolstadt and Rosenheim even briefly competed for the title of district capital after Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) surprised everyone in 2020 with the proposal to make Munich its own eighth government district. But nobody has been talking about this for a long time, also because it would require a constitutional amendment.
In Munich there will always be jobs in other authorities for civil servants who are unwilling to change, Herrmann assures them in Rosenheim, before a mixed choir of two dozen civil servants and politicians, accompanied by the flute trio of the police orchestra, starts singing the Bavarian anthem and the Deutschlandlied. Singing along is just as voluntary for civil servants as moving to another office should be. Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) emphasizes that no one is transferred against their will. Two-thirds of the jobs that have been relocated throughout Bavaria have been filled “according to the express request of the employees,” one-third through new hires, while colleagues at the old office have retired.
The first step involves less than one percent of all civil servants in Bavaria
Füracker calls the relocations an “important instrument of active structural policy”. Secure and close-to-home government jobs also show “a positive population development in rural areas, the emigration trend has been stopped”. In its first stage up to 2025, the program will only affect around 2,500 jobs, i.e. not even one percent of all Bavarian civil servants. More than 1,400 employees in 55 of the planned 66 government agencies and 430 of the planned 930 study places have been relocated since 2015, according to the Füracker ministry.
By 2030, there should be another 2,670 jobs and 400 study places. In addition to the new branch offices of the government of Upper Bavaria, this second stage includes a partial relocation of the Ministry of Construction with 200 jobs to Augsburg, a relocation of the State Office for Finance with 300 jobs to Weiden, a new logistics center for the police in Hof with 300 jobs, 300 mostly new positions at the property tax office in Zwiesel and Viechtach as well as 400 study places in Kronach.
There are certainly doubts about the purpose of individual projects such as the recently started new building for the Würzburg State Archives in Kitzingen, 25 kilometers away, but overall experts such as Holger Magel are satisfied with the program. If the state wants to stick to the “real utopia” of equal living conditions in town and country, it shouldn’t rely on the market, but must offer “higher-quality jobs” in the country itself, says the emeritus professor for regional development. From his point of view, however, Rosenheim and Ingolstadt should not necessarily benefit, or Nuremberg with its second office of the Ministry of Finance. Magel believes that the moving costs, which have also been criticized from time to time, are justified: “In ten or 20 years nobody will ask how much it cost, just look at what has become of the place.”