Enlarge image
Prudence and empathy are now particularly in demand
Photo: Willie B Thomas/Stone RF/Getty Images
Very good grades, internships, foreign languages - up to now, such criteria were considered decisive when looking for a job.
But the pandemic and the shortage of skilled workers are changing the world of work.
And suddenly completely different skills are required: social and communicative skills.
This is the result of a new study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, for which around 48 million online job offers were examined between 2018 and 2021.
A key result: In 2021 employers considered the »frustration tolerance« and the »empathy« of potential employees to be significantly more important than in 2018. The authors of the study recorded an increase of 70 percent in the word »frustration tolerance« and 39 percent in »empathy«.
In 2021, applicants were also asked to have “the ability to motivate”, “a positive attitude” and “safe handling of data”.
Qualifications such as »presentation skills« or »negotiation skills« were less in demand in 2021 than in 2018.
There was little change when it came to the desire for classic core virtues: according to the Bertelsmann study, in 2021 almost half of all job advertisements called for “commitment” and “team spirit” in almost a third.
»Independence« is also still very popular.
It is interesting that "reliability" is much more in demand in rural regions than in cities - and in eastern Germany it is much more frequently in demand than in western Germany.
In every fourth job advertisement in 2021, knowledge of German was explicitly required.
In 2018, this was only the case for every fifth job offered.
The authors of the study conclude that the willingness to hire foreign specialists has increased.
dpa/faq
