As of: March 18, 2024, 1:23 p.m
By: Sok Eng Lim, Kai Bräunig, Moritz Maier
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Germany is sliding into a skilled worker crisis.
Experts say more immigration is needed.
And something else urgently needs to change, say the Greens and the CDU.
Berlin – Germany has a huge problem with skilled workers – not least in skilled trades and other skilled trades.
Seven million jobs will be lost by 2030 because the baby boomer generation is retiring.
To make matters worse, the number of unfilled training positions reached a new high of over 73,000 last year, according to figures from the Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB).
Most recently, one in eight positions was not filled.
The skilled workers of tomorrow are already missing today.
So what to do about it?
There are possibilities.
Because: Millions of young people do not have a professional qualification.
Politicians say that these need to be better supported.
CDU demands: AI should help with the shortage of trainees
“We see the lack of trainees everywhere,” says Thomas Jarzombek, education policy spokesman for the CDU in the Bundestag, to
IPPEN.MEDIA
.
The CDU politician, who also sits on the party's federal executive board, is calling for an alliance to make training more attractive.
According to Jarzombek, companies have to pay more salaries, but politicians are also asked: “The state can help and, for example, extend student student loans to training occupations.”
Paradox: There are actually enough free training places.
But the number of people without training is growing.
In 2021 alone, there were over 2.6 million people between the ages of 20 and 34 who did not have a professional qualification.
The CDU politician sees room for improvement, particularly in school-based career orientation.
“When it comes to career guidance, digitalization and AI offer enormous potential that must be exploited.
“Intelligent learning programs can recognize personal strengths and weaknesses and therefore provide tailor-made recommendations for professional fields,” says Jarzombek.
The idea is that through better orientation at school, students can be offered better-tailored internships.
“Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, the key is to figure them out.
Anyone who ends up in the right job is good at it and therefore motivated.”
Green politician wants career guidance in elementary school
Anja Reinalter from the Greens also wants to focus on career orientation.
She is also a member of the education committee and is shocked by the number of young people without a vocational qualification: “That is far too high!
Anyone who doesn't have a degree is almost always at risk of ending up in dead-end poverty." Reinalter emphasizes that the shortage of trainees and workers is not just a traffic light issue, but has been a problem for years.
“We don’t just have a skills shortage, we have a skills crisis.”
The Green politician pleads with our editorial team for more individual support.
“Young people need more career guidance – earlier, more often, more regularly.
A week of orientation in the 8th grade is not enough,” said Reinalter.
“Let’s look at Switzerland: elementary school students are already getting a taste of careers.”
Without immigration, Germany cannot get the trainee shortage under control
Despite the untapped potential of young people in Germany, the future shortage of young workers cannot be covered by the domestic market.
Reinalter is therefore in favor of more immigration: “We need skilled workers from abroad to maintain our prosperity.
Trained specialists are only part of the puzzle.
We have to manage to motivate more people to come to Germany to do training with us.”
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In order to give education a higher priority, the Green MP advocates for more state funding, similar to what students already receive for affordable housing.
“We support students, so we also have to support trainees.
For example, there is nothing wrong with both living together in dormitories.”
At the skilled workers' congress, trainees explained to Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) where there are problems with training in Germany - and what needs to be done better in order to train enough skilled workers of tomorrow.
© Carsten Koall
The federal government is of course aware of the largest shortage of trainees in 30 years.
The Skilled Immigration Act, a mobility grant, the “young living” trainee funding and the career orientation program (BOP) are intended to bring more young people from home and abroad into training.
Oliver Kaczmarek, education policy spokesman for the SPD in the Bundestag, speaks to
IPPEN.MEDIA
of the BOP as a “game changer” but also emphasizes that successful career orientation requires “strong integration of business and networking between local schools and companies”.
SPD politician: Education system not sufficiently geared to the diversity of young people
The SPD politician also refers to young foreign people who already live in Germany.
“Our education system is not sufficiently geared to the diversity of the young generation with their different talents and needs.
The potential of foreign young people in Germany is enormous and deserves our full recognition, especially when it comes to access to work and training,” said Kaczmarek.
“We need to offer better integration measures so that they can fully develop their potential.
Because educational success still depends heavily on social background.”