Categories: News-EN
      Date: Sep  3, 2010
     Title: News

 The booming economy is crying out for skilled labour

The German economy is currently growing at a rate not seen since the days of the reunification. but just as the boom getting into gear, industry is waking up to the lack of a skilled workforce. According to a survey conducted by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce DIHK, 70 per cent of companies are experiencing problems finding sufficiently qualified candidates to fill their vacancies. The German government is pinning its hopes primarily on a program of training and further education to bridge the qualification gap. The results of the DIHK survey, conducted in 1,600 companies, point towards a significant problem: There is a serious skilled labour shortfall across a wide range of different sectors - including academia, the technical industries and commerce.

According to the German Statistics Agency, in the second quarter of this year German economic output rose by 2.2 per cent compared to the same period in the previous year. The German Institute for Economic Research and renowned economists are anticipating economic growth to actually top 3 per cent for this year. The reasons they give for the headlong upward trend are booming export market, increased willingness on the part of companies to invest and significantly more buoyant consumer spending.

The companies themselves would appear to be not entirely blameless in depleted state of the qualified labour market. As long as a year ago, the German Academie of Science and Engineering (Acatech) warned that "industry, in particular medium-sized enterprises, are poorly equipped to meet the next upturn". In some areas, the number of new graduates is not even sufficient ti keep pace with the number of engineers taking retirement. Without the necessary investment in the up-and-coming generation despite the recession, predicted Achatech, the shortage of skilled labour would impact all the more dramatically when the economy turned the corner.

The German Institute for Economic Research (IW) considers that the shortfall of qualified engineers, currently running into the thousands, could place the recovery in jeopardy. The number of unfilled vacancies in high-tech companies in Germany is rising, largely due to widespread neglect in training up the next generation. Competitors in France, Belgium and the Czech Republic are not experiencing this problem on the same scale. The Institute has stressed the vital role of high-tech companies - for instance in the mechanical and automotive sectors or also the chemical industry - as a motor for the economy, and it is here that engineers and scientists account for around one third of the workforce. Over the next few years, according Dr. Erdmann of the IW, there will be a marked increase in the number of engineers reaching retirement age, significantly exacerbating the problem.