Germany urgently needs manpower

Those who want to eat out these days in Germany can even find a table, but there may be no staff either to cook or to serve. And this is just one sector where there is currently a shortage of manpower in the country: trains and planes are delayed or canceled due to lack of staff at stations and airports.

According to a survey by DIHT (German Confederation of Chambers of Industry and Commerce), around 56% of companies are understaffed, and all companies consulted consider this to be one of the biggest risks they currently face.

The Federal Labor Agency (BA) recorded bottlenecks in 148 labor areas, in addition to risks in another 122. It can take up to eight months to fill a vacancy in a nursing home; for construction companies, the period is six months; across the country there are more than 1.7 million job openings.

“Five to 10 years ago, we ran ads to offer our services; now we’re advertising in all media to attract employees,” says Markus Winter, managing director of the IDS industry services agency in Baden state. -Württemberg. With 750 employees, it is trying to fill 20 vacancies, including locksmiths, painters and heavy machinery drivers.

“It’s no longer just a specialist field problem, it’s a pervasive manpower problem,” Winter continues. There are also vacancies for unskilled workers, “areas that are really essential for the industry, without which nothing happens.”

‘The party is over’

Despite some more recent factors, the general trend towards labor shortages was largely predictable. “We find ourselves in a very dramatic situation, which we have seen approaching a long time ago”, confirms Herbert Brücker, a professor at the Research Institute (IAB) in Nuremberg.

The demographic shift is noticeable in Germany: each year, the country loses around 350,000 working-age citizens, as those born shortly after World War II retire and there are not enough young people to fill their jobs. In 2035, according to analysts, the labor market deficit is expected to reach 7 million professionals.

Previously, the country could rely on workers from other EU member states to make up for domestic shortages, but, according to Brücker, that source is starting to dry up, as “revenues in other EU countries are starting to match, and they too are going through demographic changes”.

“Basically, the party is over”, he concludes.

Contract first, learn the job later

A law passed in 2020 aimed to encourage the 400,000 workers Germany needs each year to come and stay. In its first year, the new rules only attracted 30,000 – a “disappointment”, as Brücker puts it.

The federal government is working to amend the legislation and present its key points in September. The proposed changes include opening up the job market to contractors, even in the absence of a recognized qualification for the post.

Ministers Hubertus Heil of Labor and Nancy Faeser of the Interior propose that German employees help foreign colleagues obtain the necessary training.

“Right now, the state decides who’s right for us as a company,” explains Winter. But “he’s not in a position to do that.” The director of IDS calculates that companies are already hiring 20% ​​of their employees without training and then helping them to learn on the job.

“Virtually all other countries have totally different training systems than Germany,” reports DIHT in a press release in favor of labor reform. “This starts with the visa process, where documents are sent from all over the world, and will end with office workers, who do not always apply complex regulations in a uniform and transparent way.”

Employers under suspicion

Even with a contract in hand, it can be difficult to apply for a work visa at a German embassy, ​​says lawyer Bettina Offer. “I constantly see officials harboring the widespread suspicion that my employers just want to traffic some old foreigner into the country, rather than understanding that they are looking for workers.”

She characterizes the attitude of German immigration departments as “defensive”: “I always have the problem of having to fight a mentality that sees a foreigner who stays out of the country as a good foreigner – and that just doesn’t work. We need a change. paradigm. Every worker who comes to us is a gain for the country.”

Employers like Markus Winter are also hoping for an amendment to the asylum laws. He considers the requirements for refugees to obtain permission to work too stringent. As of 2016, he has employed around 300 of them. “I can tell you from experience that it’s not easy. Two-thirds of the candidates didn’t even reach us on the first try.”

Despite all the problems with language and integration, he sees great potential among asylum seekers: “From a political point of view, I can understand that you don’t want to practice a hidden immigration policy through asylum laws. But here too much still needs to change.”