Skills shorta­ge cau­ses lost va­lue crea­ti­on po­ten­ti­al of al­most 100 bil­li­on eu­ros

Ac­cor­ding to the In­sti­tu­te for Em­ploy­ment Re­se­arch (IAB), the Ger­man la­bor mar­ket could shrink by up to se­ven mil­li­on workers by 2035.

A lack of skil­led workers is an in­cre­asing­ly acu­te pro­blem for the Ger­man eco­no­my. Ac­cor­ding to a DIHK sur­vey, more than half of com­pa­nies are unable to fill all va­can­ci­es.

More than half of Ger­man com­pa­nies are ha­ving dif­fi­cul­ties fil­ling va­can­ci­es. This is the re­sult of a sur­vey of al­most 22,000 com­pa­nies pu­blished to­day by the As­so­cia­ti­on of Ger­man Cham­bers of In­dus­try and Com­mer­ce (DIHK). „We as­su­me that around two mil­li­on jobs re­main va­cant in Ger­ma­ny,“ said De­pu­ty DIHK Ma­na­ging Di­rec­tor Achim Dercks in Ber­lin. „This cor­re­sponds to a lost va­lue crea­ti­on po­ten­ti­al of al­most 100 bil­li­on eu­ros.

„A dan­ge­rous mix­tu­re“

The shorta­ge of skil­led workers the­r­e­fo­re re­mains one of the big­gest pro­blems for the Ger­man eco­no­my. Ac­cor­ding to the DIHK, the chal­lenges in fil­ling va­can­ci­es have be­co­me even more acu­te com­pared to the pre­vious year, alt­hough many com­pa­nies were ex­pec­ting a dif­fi­cult eco­no­mic year and had sca­led back their per­son­nel plan­ning. In the Skil­led Workers Re­port, 53% of com­pa­nies sta­ted that they were af­fec­ted by staff shorta­ges – com­pared to 51% in the pre­vious year. Never be­fo­re have so many com­pa­nies had com­pli­ca­ti­ons when re­crui­ting new em­ployees. The si­tua­ti­on on the la­bor mar­ket is re­la­tively sta­ble, de­spi­te the co­ro­na­vi­rus pan­de­mic and the en­er­gy cri­sis. „Ho­we­ver, a dan­ge­rous mix­tu­re has been bre­wing un­der the sur­face for some time,“ says Dercks. This is not only weig­hing on in­di­vi­du­al com­pa­nies, but is also slo­wing down the ex­pan­si­on of in­fra­struc­tu­re, the en­er­gy tran­si­ti­on and di­gi­ta­liza­ti­on. The pro­blems are par­ti­cu­lar­ly se­rious for ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers of elec­tri­cal equip­ment, with 67% of com­pa­nies af­fec­ted. The fi­gu­re is just as high in me­cha­ni­cal en­gi­nee­ring and 65% in ve­hic­le con­s­truc­tion. As many as 71% of he­alth­ca­re and so­cial ser­vice pro­vi­ders are com­plai­ning of dif­fi­cul­ties. The plight of the lo­gi­stics sec­tor is also striking. „The lack of dri­vers at lo­gi­stics com­pa­nies is ma­king it in­cre­asing­ly dif­fi­cult to de­li­ver end pro­ducts on time in re­tail, as well as raw ma­te­ri­als and in­ter­me­dia­te goods in in­dus­try,“ said Dercks. In the hos­pi­ta­li­ty in­dus­try, staff shorta­ges have led to a li­mi­t­ed ran­ge of ser­vices and re­du­ced ope­ning hours.

Less bu­reau­cra­cy, more im­mi­gra­ti­on

Ac­cor­ding to the DIHK, in or­der to im­pro­ve the si­tua­ti­on, com­pa­nies are pri­ma­ri­ly cal­ling for a re­duc­tion in bu­reau­cra­cy, which 52% would like to see. This would al­low more staff to be de­ploy­ed for com­pa­nies‘ ac­tu­al tasks. Vo­ca­tio­nal trai­ning should also be streng­the­ned. Grea­ter trai­ning for the un­em­ploy­ed is also seen as a way for­ward. Ac­cor­ding to the DIHK, fur­ther im­pro­ve­ments in the com­pa­ti­bi­li­ty of fa­mi­ly and care­er and the par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on of ol­der peo­p­le in the work­force are also ur­gen­tly nee­ded. For ex­am­p­le, the Virch­ow­bund me­di­cal as­so­cia­ti­on re­cent­ly cal­led on all me­di­cal prac­ti­ces to switch to a four-day week. In ad­di­ti­on to eco­no­mic con­side­ra­ti­ons, it is also a „sign against the ever-in­cre­asing bu­reau­cra­cy in me­di­cal prac­ti­ces and as a me­ans against the shorta­ge of skil­led workers“. Ac­cor­ding to the DIHK, 35 per­cent of com­pa­nies also hope to make pro­gress by ma­king it ea­sier to re­cruit for­eign spe­cia­lists. Ac­cor­ding to esti­ma­tes, a net 400,000 im­mi­grants are nee­ded each year to clo­se the gap in the Ger­man la­bor mar­ket. Ac­cor­ding to the In­sti­tu­te for Em­ploy­ment Re­se­arch (IAB), the Ger­man la­bor mar­ket could shrink by up to se­ven mil­li­on workers by 2035 if no ac­tion is ta­ken.

Source: Ta​ges​schau​.de