In Germany there is a lack of personnel in the gastronomy. Trains are canceled due to lack of drivers. Suitcases pile up at airports, because there is no one to transport them, and children are not accepted in kindergartens, because there is a lack of educators.
Problems in 148 professions
A survey by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce shows that the 56 % of companies complain about the lack of employees and describe the situation as one of their biggest business problems.
The German Employment Agency confirms the situation. There are personnel problems in 350 professions. Over 1.7 million jobs are advertised across the country.
Not only lack qualified personnel
Markus Winter, manager of the Industrial Provision Service (IDS) in Baden-Württemberg, looking for staff in more than 20 professions: locksmiths, painters, forklifts, assemblers or beverage deliverers. Winter says they also have trouble finding non-formal staff: “These are really systemically relevant areas for the industry, without which the industry just doesn’t work.”
The “baby boomers” will retire soon
The shortage is not surprising. “Now we find ourselves in a relatively dramatic situation that we have actually predicted for a long time,” says Herbert Brücker, professor at the Institute for the Labor Market in Nuremberg.
According to him, demographic change It is notable. Germany loses about 350,000 people of working age each year. Baby boomers will retire in a few years.
Experts like Brücker they predict that by 2035 there will be about seven million fewer people in the labor market. It will be a hole impossible to cover with personnel from Germany, nor from the European Union.
The Immigration Law for Specialized Personnel, disappointing
To compensate for the current shortage in the labor market, they would have to arrive in Germany 400,000 immigrants every year and, above all, they would have to stay.
Since 2012, academics outside the EU can work in Germany with the so-called EU Blue Card. In 2020 the Qualified Immigration Law also came into force, which also includes non-academic professions. But it’s not working: Small and medium-sized companies in Germany often still have trouble recruiting qualified workers from abroad. In 2020, 30,000 qualified workers arrived from abroad and 20,20 left the country.
The German Government, in order to try to find solutions, will reform this law. For example, the entry of personnel with a contract in Germany will be allowed, with an academic degree in their country, but without validation in Germany.
Winter assures that some of its clients offer work to people without qualification: “I estimate that about 20 percent are not qualified workers.”
He hopes that the situation will be simplified for all workers who want to work in Germany: “It starts with the visa process, in which documents are sent all over the world, and ends with officials, who do not always implement complex regulations uniformly and transparently”.
“Deep-rooted defensive attitude” among the authorities
Lawyer Bettina Offer, advisor of companies that want to hire foreign workers, you know what that means in practice. Even with an employment contract in your pocket, it is difficult to get an appointment at a German embassy to apply for a visa. In addition, the verification process can take months.
“Time and time again I work with authorities who have a general suspicion that my employers somehow want to smuggle foreigners, in instead of understanding that employers are looking for workers“.
Offer speaks of “a deep-seated defensive attitude” in the German immigration authorities.
Winter also hopes that the employment situation with refugees will change, and believes that despite all the problems with language and integration, there is great potential among asylum seekers. “I can understand, from the political point of view, that they do not want a hidden immigration policy through the asylum law. But even on this issue there is much that needs to change”.