End of fixed interest period 2027 - increase repayment or other options?

You have to be careful with the skilled labor shortage. It exists, yes. But it mainly refers to crafts, non-academic professions, and jobs that involve a lot of travel. With the typical applicant for the 9 to 5 office job, you could usually pave the streets.

I want to put it this way: your last two proposals are clear - that is then mandatory. The other two I would have signed immediately before the birth of our child. But I find that with a child, we have become significantly less flexible in terms of working hours and commute. Practical example: Yesterday at noon, the daycare calls that the little one has diarrhea and must be picked up immediately. No problem, my wife works locally. I drive an hour in this weather. When picking her up, the information is that she can only come back when she has had no diarrhea for 48 hours straight. Bam: One of us has to stay home today and cannot work. We have such situations one to three times a month depending on the month. I imagine it’s also interesting with a new employer how they would handle this.

That may still be true for administrative qualifications, but everything beyond that is nonsense. Even if the conditions in certain industries are optimal, as you describe them, there are far too few qualified applicants.
I myself work in IT and our medium-sized company invests heavily in employer branding. This leads to a relatively high number of applications, but the quality is extremely difficult. Out of 100 candidates, 2-3 people fit the profile. The fact that there are even 100 costs seven figures per year, and we are a medium-sized company.
Good headhunters nowadays charge 20-25k just to get started, as a base fee. A few years ago this was still purely commission-based. If you don’t accept their salary range for the position, they decline because it’s unrealistic and no success is expected.