Please do not forget that this is about a 2 year time for parents, those who have to care for the elderly etc.
Also the wage increase, which (as always) was described as incredibly high in the news, boils down to just 2% yearly (because it is made over 27 month I think it was).
Statistics, statistics, statisics....
Also Eastern Germany still has longer work hours and lower pay on average.
(Interestingly, since the gender pay gap was a topic, in some Eastern regions women get paid more then man, while in Bavaria the woman get paid a lot less. Why? It depends on the job, where there are no well-paid "mans" jobs, the women get more.)