Statistics
Services and Staff
Help by the millions
The numbers are impressive: 739.410 professionals work in the 25.453 facilities and services associated with Caritas throughout Germany. They are supported by several hundreds of thousands volunteers. These were the findings of the most recent survey conducted by Caritas on 31 December 2022 (released in 2024).
They are joined by just under 48,906 trainees and pupils, 4,121 volunteers completing a year of community service and 5,606 participants in the federal volunteer service programme.
More than a million people work throughout the country on behalf of Caritas. (c) Deutscher Caritasverband e. V.
In comparison with the previous survey conducted in 2022 (Data from 31 December 2020), the number of facilities and services rose slightly by 501, and the number of professional employees increased by 43,489.
81.7 percent of Caritas employees are women.
Most work in healthcare
Of the professional employees, more than 293,603 work in healthcare facilities and services, 183,809 in child and youth outreach, 6,612 in family services, 126,790 in care for the elderly, 87,276 in care for the disabled/psychiatric care and 41,320 in Additional Social assistance. 57 percent of all Caritas employees care for and support people on an inpatient basis in facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes, 25 percent work in day-care facilities such as kindergartens and workshops for people with disabilities.
Most Caritas' professionals work in healthcare facilities and services.DCV / infografiker.com
Many employees at large facilities
Most of the professional employees work in healthcare facilities and services.KNA / Oppitz
Many clubs, church communities, foundations, religious orders and non-profits contribute to Germany’s social infrastructure under the umbrella of Caritas. Most of the approximately 6,200 entities are small organisations with less than 50 employees. Most of the staff, almost 90 percent of all employees, work in some 1,600 organisations which have 50 or more employees. Most of these entities are organised as clubs, private limited companies or foundations.
Reliable data source: Overall statistics
Every two years, the headquarters of the German Caritas Association together with the Diocesan Caritas Associations compile overall statistics. These statistics are the only comprehensive representation of Caritas structures. In addition to national statistics, analyses for the individual dioceses are available upon request from the corresponding Diocesan Caritas Association or the German Caritas Association.