Did Germany have trouble functioning with 65-68 million?
If the question is....can Germany go and allow shrinkage of the population from the present 81-million to 68-million....the answer is no. Between industry issues, their pension program, and manpower for various jobs, they can’t make this type of decrease without major issues.
Just on nurses right now, there’s a national problem. They are to the point of recruiting nurses from the Philippines and putting them through a training program and later a year of German language, and then offering them long-term jobs in Germany.
They reported two months ago that in the state-region around Berlin....they had an urgent need for around 800 new and additional teachers, and they weren’t getting enough applicants for the open positions.
Here where I live....they have issues in finding enough bus drivers....so they’ve contracted out some Czech guys who come in for six months at a time while they try to keep recruiting locally for folks who will take just plain bus driver jobs.