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WORKING IN GERMANY

Germany struggles with growing worker shortage

Germany is grappling with a growing worker shortage across the entire job market.

Published: 2 June 2022 16:38 CEST
A notice board in front says a restaurant in Schwerin is looking for staff in the service and kitchen areas.
A notice board in front says a restaurant in Schwerin is looking for staff in the service and kitchen areas. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Jens Büttner

In the first quarter of this year, the shortage of skilled workers in Germany reached record levels.

In March the number of vacancies rose to a new high of 558,000, said the Competence Centre for Securing Skilled Labour (KOFA) last month. 

It means that the skilled labour gap widened by 88,000 vacancies within just three months.

As The Local has been reporting, Germany has been trying to plug its worker gap. In 2020 the government eased some immigration laws to help attract workers – and the new government plans to go even further. 

READ ALSO: What Germany’s plans for a points-based immigration system means for foreigners

In order to deal with labour shortages, Germany needs around 400,000 new workers every year, according to the Federal Employment Agency.

Job vacancies across the board

According to the recent study by KOFA, the growing shortage of skilled workers is affecting the entire labour market.

However, the shortages are particularly large in the health, social services, teaching and education sectors, as well as in the construction, architecture, engineering, surveying, and building services.

A sign on a Frankfurt restaurant says staff are being sought.

A sign on a Frankfurt restaurant says staff are being sought. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Gollnow

READ ALSO: 10 things you need to know about Germany’s law to attract skilled foreign workers

In the areas of health, social services, teaching and education alone, around six out of 10 jobs are unfilled.

There are also above average vacancies in the fields of raw material extraction, production and manufacturing, natural sciences, geography and IT, as well as agriculture, forestry and horticulture.

The number of vacancies for qualified applicants in aviation and energy technology occupations has also increased sharply recently.

Another study – the KfW-ifo Skilled Workers Barometer May 2022 – also said economic sectors are affected by shortages, including legal and tax advisors plus auditors. 

“The shortage of skilled workers has again become a growing challenge for Germany’s future,” said the KFW research.

“A large proportion of companies are affected. Tensions in international trade relations and disruptions in supply chains will continue to put pressure on the export economy, on which about a quarter of all jobs in Germany depend.

EXPLAINED: The 25 most in-demand jobs in Germany

“At the same time, the shortage of skilled workers in important sectors of the economy such as the skilled trades or health care is expected to worsen due to demographic change. And digitalisation will have a major influence on which skills will be in demand in the future.”

Festivals call for staff

Other industries are also affected by staff shortages. Festival organisers as well as restaurant, cafe and bar managers in Germany are struggling to fill positions.

Part of the problem was that lockdowns and closures saw hospitality staff endure months of Kurzarbeit (reduced working hours) in 2020 and 2021. By the time the bars, cafes and restaurants reopened, many had found work in different sectors or were reluctant to return to them. 

Long hours, anti-social times of work, unstable contracts and lower pay also generally make the hospitality sector less attractive to potential employees. 

Some festivals in Germany are even having to beg for workers this summer. 

At the end of April, the organisers of the “Umsonst & Draußen” festival in Würzburg made a dramatic appeal to the public – they called for 300 workers to help put the festival on. 

Organiser Ralf Duggen said that students, who usually take summer jobs, were not coming forward to work after two years of cancelled festivals. 

READ ALSO: Working in Germany – 7 factors that can affect how much you’re paid

Vocabulary

Skilled workers – (die) Fachkräfte

Vacancies – (die) offenen Stellen

Skilled labour gap – (die) Fachkräftelücke

Above average – überdurchschnittlich

We’re aiming to help our readers improve their German by translating vocabulary from some of our news stories. Did you find this article useful? Let us know.

Member comments

  1. As an EU-educated midwife with a BSc and MSc (so much more highly qualified than the German apprenticeship program), I cannot work here until I have a B2 German certificate. But recent refugees from the Ukraine, who are not EU educated (i.e. the regulated EU-wide curriculum for registered nurses and midwives) can work right away without a word of German. I fully support this initiative and think it’s great, but surely other skilled workers should have the same rights? In my home country we had Polish nurses coming to us with hardly any English and within a few months of working in an English-speaking environment, they were fluent. I have no doubt the same would be true here for me, but I am not afforded the opportunity while the nation laments about the lack of nurses and midwives. Hmmm.

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WORKING IN GERMANY

How many skilled workers will immigrate to Germany with the Opportunity Card?

As a new jobseekers' visa that is designed to attract foreign workers launches in Germany in June, one question remains: how many skilled labourers will it actually bring in?

Published: 30 May 2024 12:09 CEST
How many skilled workers will immigrate to Germany with the Opportunity Card?

From June 1st, foreign nationals from beyond the EU who want to find a job in Germany will be able to apply or a Chancenkarte (Opportunity Card) to do so.

The Opportunity Card functions as a temporary work visa, allowing card holders to enter the country and then work part-time or to take on two-week trial work for up to a year.

It comes as one of several immigration policy changes meant to attract badly needed young workers amidst Germany’s severe labour shortage. 

Policy makers hope that by allowing workers to more easily enter the country and start work, a new generation of skilled workers will take their chance to immigrate to the Bundesrepublik. But to what extent the new visa opportunity will succeed in narrowing Germany’s labour gap remains to be seen.

How many workers might apply for a Chancenkarte?

As Germany’s post-war and baby-boomer generations enter retirement, the country is experiencing a growing labour shortage that is putting significant pressure on a number of industries.

According to the draft law on the further development of skilled worker immigration, which led to the creation of the opportunity card, the government expects up to 30,000 opportunity cards to be applied for per year.

That would be a significant boost to the number of incoming skilled workers compared to figures seen in recent years. In 2022, a total of 38,820 skilled professionals with a recognised qualification entered the country, according to the latest Migration Report prepared by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.

So an additional 30,000 workers per year would be a laudable increase.

However, Germany’s coalition government has previously stated the goal of attracting 400,000 qualified professionals from abroad each year. This figure was based on previous German Economic Institute (IW) calculations that by 2030, Germany could face a shortage of roughly 5 million workers.

READ ALSO: Q&A – How foreign jobseekers in Germany can maximise their chances in 2024

Considering that goal, the 30,000 workers that could be attracted by the opportunity card would amount to just 7.5 percent of Germany’s target.

But given the severity of the labour shortage in key industries, anything is better than nothing.

rail track construction

Railroad construction, called “Berufe im Gleisbau” in German, is a bottleneck occupation. More track construction workers are badly needed to keep the country’s railway infrastructure in-tact in the future. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Jan Woitas

What are the ‘bottleneck’ occupations?

Principally, the opportunity card is designed to ease immigration requirements for all kinds of skilled workers.

But workers from so-called bottleneck occupations are granted an extra point according to the point-based system that will be used to review applications.

Put simply, bottleneck occupations are those in which there are not enough incoming workers to replace the retiring workforce. 

Germany’s employment agency assesses bottleneck occupations in the country. Last year the agency announced that the number of bottleneck occupations had risen sharply, from 148 to 200 in 2022 – amounting to a shortage in one out of every six occupations in Germany.

A spokesperson for the employment agency, told The Local that: “Nursing specialists, occupations in sanitary, heating and air conditioning technology, surgical assistants, construction electricians, and rail construction workers”, are a few examples of key bottleneck occupations currently.

READ ALSO: Hit by worker shortage, German city gets students to drive trams

For more information on the Chancenkarte and who is qualified to apply read our explainer.

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