Ifo Institute expects good prospects – industry less optimistic

Teacher

The need for personnel in the area of ​​education and teaching has risen particularly sharply compared to the previous year.

(Photo: dpa)

Berlin The willingness of companies to hire fell slightly before the turn of the year. Nevertheless, the Munich-based Ifo Institute expects continued positive employment prospects for the first quarter of next year. Service providers in particular are looking for new employees.

The Ifo employment barometer, which is calculated exclusively for the Handelsblatt every month, fell minimally from 99.6 points in November to 99.5 points. The employment outlook had clouded over significantly since June, before the barometer rose sharply again in November. It is based on the employment intentions of around 9,000 companies.

The industry is no longer as optimistic in its personnel planning as it was in the spring of this year. Reasons are likely to be the energy price crisis, weakening domestic demand, declining export expectations and declining investments, as the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) determined in its autumn survey.

The Ifo barometer is currently not pointing to a major hiring offensive in the manufacturing sector. The same applies to trade and construction, comments Ifo expert Klaus Wohlrabe on the data.

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The positive employment outlook is currently being driven primarily by the service sector, even if the partial barometer has also fallen slightly. According to Wohlrabe, layoffs can only be expected in the catering trade after Christmas. With other service providers, the signs point to expansion.

Personnel service providers want to continue hiring

This also applies to personnel service providers, who are optimistic about the coming months. The temporary work sector is an early indicator for economic and labor market policy developments. If business is going well there, this indicates an increasing need for personnel in other sectors as well.

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That is why the shortage of workers and skilled workers will not go away in the coming year. This will “increasingly become an obstacle to growth”, warned the general manager of the Association of the Bavarian Metal and Electrical Industry (VBM), Bertram Brossardt.

Although the annual average production of the Bavarian metal companies will still be around three percent below the previous year’s level, they hired almost 15,000 additional employees over the course of the year.

According to data from the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB), around 1.8 million vacancies had to be filled in the fourth quarter of 2022 – around 106,000 fewer than in the three months before. According to the job navigator, which is calculated for the Federal Employers’ Association of Personnel Service Providers (BAP), teachers and daycare workers in particular are desperately needed.

According to the job navigator, there were around 54,000 job vacancies in November in the field of education and teaching – almost a third more than in the previous year. The number of vacancies in the manufacturing sector and in public administration has risen by around 23 percent within a year.

Handel is looking for more than 200,000 employees

The industry with the highest need for personnel in absolute terms is retail. Around 216,000 jobs were advertised in this branch of the economy in November.

In view of the continuing shortage of staff, the Union faction is demanding decisive countermeasures from the federal government. “To combat the shortage of skilled workers, the traffic light wants to bring more foreign workers to Germany,” said Stephan Stracke (CSU), spokesman for labor market policy. “That’s the wrong way. First of all, we have to do everything we can to increase our potential for skilled workers in Germany.”

In a five-page position paper, the Union calls for greater efforts to ensure that no child leaves school without a qualification. Full-time work must also be made more attractive, for example through more flexible working hours and an expansion of childcare.

The traffic light also wants to get people in Germany better into the labor market, but at the end of November it also decided on the cornerstones for a reform of immigration law. According to Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD), a draft law is to be introduced to the Bundestag at the beginning of 2023.

More: Industry Endgame – Three Scenarios for the Future

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