I'm a researcher at a university in Germany. Here in Germany, the administration has also been growing for many years and it's growing much faster than researc

I'm a researcher at a university in Germany. Here in Germany, the administration has also been growing for many years and it's growing much faster than research staff. I have never heard anyone say that the administration is staffed with redundant workers. Everyone agrees that the admin people are totally overloaded. The primary reason is, as you say, regulations. However, my impression is that a lot of these regulations are home-made and completely unnecessary. Some people in admin (clearly not everyone) seem to have a tendency to make up new regulations that serve no real purpose apart from securing their own jobs. In a perverse sense, this may actually be rational behavior, so it is not surprising that this is happening. However, this means that poor management is in fact to blame, because what is poor management if not prioritizing your own personal agenda over the good of the institution you're working for. Disclaimer: My experience with (several) German institutions may obviously not translate to US universities. I have worked for one US university (UC system) and I have only (well, mostly) good things to say about the administration there.