Skilled professionals for Germany (2024)

Women

The greatest pool of talent with which to meet the skills shortage is offered by women. With a female labour force participation rate of more than 75% (women aged between 20 and 64), Germany was doing well in 2017. However, the rise in female employment over the last ten years is rooted in more part-time work; there has been virtually no change in the number of women in full-time jobs. The ratio of women in full-time work is higher in almost all the other EU countries. Many women in part-time jobs would like to increase the hours they work. And almost 42% of women aged between 25 and 49 who do not participate in the labour market said that this was because they were looking after children and other relatives.

Of the nearly five million women of working age who are currently not working or looking for a job, the majority are well trained and educated. So it is in the business community’s own interest to make better use of the work and skills offered by women. Here, it is important to have better possibilities to combine family and career.

Older people

Young people and old – all generations will be needed for Germany’s future. Older employees in particular can draw on comprehensive expertise and many years of professional experience. Between 600,000 and 1.1 million skilled workers will be aged between 55 and 64 by 2025. This figure can be found in a study by ZEW from Mannheim on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. In fact, according to statistics from the Federal Employment Agency, the labour participation rate of older people, especially women, has risen in recent years. Also, more men are continuing to work after the age of 65, often in part-time jobs.

Every company can take targeted measures to benefit from the potential of older people. Age-appropriate design of work, an improved balance between work and private life, more further training for older people, targeted recruitment of older people and proactive health management – all of these are investments which pay off equally for companies, for employees and for Germany as a whole.

Semi-skilled and unskilled workers

A large number of unemployed persons without a vocational qualification are seeking a job as an auxiliary in occupations experiencing a skills shortage. The KOFA study 2/2019 shows that by training unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the skills gap could be reduced or even closed in 30 out of 204 professional occupations affected by skills shortages.

People with a migrant background

People with a migrant background also offer a lot of potential. Many thousands of additional workers could come on to the market if people with a migrant background were given more support in terms of integration and training. On the one hand, this means integrating refugees into the labour market.

In order to improve the integration of immigrants into the training and labour market, some 170 refugee recruitment advisors have been supporting companies in filling their vacancies and vocational training positions with refugees since spring 2016. Across Germany, these advisors organise work placements and job shadowing opportunities for refugees, support them in acquiring the basic skills they need, and find jobs and vocational training positions for them in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); since the end of 2017, they have also been working with large companies. They also advise companies on matters including language training, refugees' residence status, skills, and support services – and their work is paying off: in 2018, they helped some 9,700 refugees find work in the form of job shadowing, internships, basic introductory training or a regular training place or job; 2,585 of them took up dual vocational training.

Inclusion: recruiting people with disabilities

According to the Federal Employment Agency, some 177,000 severely disabled people would like to work. Many people with a disability have above-average skills, and their ability to work is hardly affected at all by their disability.

The Economic Affairs Ministry is leading by example. Around 9% of the ministry’s workforce are people with disabilities – that’s well above the legal requirement of at least 6% (current as of February 2018).

You can find out more about inclusion at www.kofa.de (in German).

Top Germans working abroad

According to estimates, at least 200,000 highly qualified German nationals are currently working in the U.S.., Switzerland and other EU countries. It is good to see that German skilled workers enjoy such a great reputation abroad. At the same time, we can do more to try and benefit from this wealth of experience, and encourage these people to make a career in Germany. We need to do more to build a bridge for people returning to Germany. Here, it would be helpful to have greater transparency about services and opportunities for those interested in returning to Germany, and also to give them more support with their return and reintegration.