Modernization is the battle cry of the federal government. The country should become more innovative, the administration more digital, the power supply greener, and the entire industry more sustainable.
And so a lot was calculated these days: how many wind turbines are needed in Germany to achieve the ambitious energy transition goals. Where the green hydrogen for decarbonized industry can be produced. How long will it take to digitize – and speed up – the work of administrations. And of course what all this should and may cost.
There is just one problem: the risk of miscalculation is high. Because the ministries and think tanks usually ignore what is probably the biggest problem in the German economy in their calculations: the skilled labor crisis.
So far it has been completely unclear where the engineers, IT experts, craftsmen and planners should come from in order to achieve all the right goals.
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According to the German Economic Institute, Germany was recently short of 390,000 skilled workers, 50,000 more than at the beginning of the pandemic. Particularly in demand: computer scientists and engineers. But there is also a shortage of 36,000 craftsmen, 12,000 professional drivers and 4,200 employees in hotels and restaurants.
And the shortage is just beginning. The Federal Employment Agency warns that the number of people of typical working age, i.e. the so-called labor force potential, has been falling since 2020. This development has been foreseeable for decades.
The shortage of skilled workers may even be the best-illuminated crisis of our time. Oddly enough, unemployment has played a particularly important role in economic policy discourse to this day. It is a phenomenon of yesterday – the problem of the future is unemployment.
The situation is now so dramatic that it is time for a crisis team in the Chancellery, or at least in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Management consultants from Deloitte recently asked CFOs of German companies what the greatest risk is for the next twelve months. The shortage of skilled workers took first place – ahead of rising raw material costs and geopolitical risks.
The skilled workers crisis is the biggest growth risk for the German economy. Not only because the lack of workers endangers the growth of companies across all industries. The federal government’s major investment projects are also on the brink: the new wind turbines, charging stations and digitally transformed administrations.
(Photo: Kostas Koufogiorgos)
Economics Minister Robert Habeck has at least recognized that. He now warned of a dramatic shortage of skilled workers and workers. His answer: immigration.
According to the Federal Employment Agency, an annual net immigration of 400,000 people would be necessary to keep the workforce constant. But the number of immigrants is falling. And that will tend to stay that way – because the population is not only shrinking in Germany. The international struggle for qualified immigrants is becoming tougher as a result.
An intelligent immigration policy is certainly important. Even more important because of the limited opportunities there is a new education policy that does justice to the acute labor market problems. The school system must no longer produce graduates whose 21 percent do not understand even the simplest texts.
The universities actually have to qualify their graduates for professions instead of just for a research career, which rarely actually takes place. And the further training system must no longer rely on occupational therapy for those who have been sorted out – but must offer them a real opportunity to re-enter the labor market.
More: The German economy is missing hundreds of thousands of people – standstill is imminent