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Construction site of a wind farm: Not only engineers are in demand here
Photo: Elmar Gubisch / IMAGO
Sluggish immigration and the low birth rate are classic reasons for the shortage of skilled workers.
The craft in Germany has now identified another point that is lacking when filling vacant positions - inadequate vocational training.
»The gifted are supported in vocational training with 60 million.
In the academic education with 300 million «, said handicraft president Hans Peter Wollseifer.
“It's similar in other areas too.
The vocational schools must be financed more heavily. «That is in the coalition agreement and is correct.
»But the 600 craft training centers are not included.
But these are the universities of the craft.
Appropriate commitment is imperative, «said Wollseifer.
And: some vocational schools are in a terrible condition.
Add value to vocational education
There is a great need for qualified personnel - and the situation is likely to worsen with the tasks of the energy transition. "Climate protection goals, energy efficiency goals, e-mobility, the expansion of charging stations and the infrastructure are only possible with professionally qualified skilled craftsmen." Wollseifer called on politicians to strengthen vocational training. "We have to do everything we can to actually achieve the change as quickly as possible towards more appreciation of vocational training, but also specifically towards more young people who choose the professional training path."
This turnaround must be achieved rapidly so that a situation does not arise in which citizens can no longer be adequately supplied with craft services and products, said Wollseifer.
The decisive lever to close the skilled labor gap remains to train more young people in Germany to become qualified specialists.
The equality of vocational training to academic education must be laid down in law.
This would be a clear signal to the companies providing training, but also to schools, parents and teachers, that the state really values vocational training as equivalent to academic training.
DIHK President: too often women work part-time
Meanwhile, the German economy is urgently warning of a massive worsening of the shortage of skilled workers in the coming years. Employer President Rainer Dulger said: "The first cohorts of baby boomers are already retiring." 2025 will see the "demographic turnaround" with full force. Then comes the point where more people retire than enter the labor market. Then the contributions or taxes threatened to explode. The new federal government must simplify and accelerate the procedures for a targeted and qualified immigration of skilled workers and remove bureaucratic hurdles, said the President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations.
The President of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Peter Adrian, also called for more measures to improve the work-life balance: "We still have a high proportion of part-time women compared to other European countries." Reduce the number of workers by three to four million.
apr / dpa
