Shortage of mint experts greater than before Corona

In addition, digitization affects all companies: the need for IT users will increase in more than every second company and in 86 percent of larger companies.

Effort necessary in school

But the pandemic is likely to exacerbate the problem: Due to the cancellation of lessons and online teaching at universities, the experts fear that the number of young professionals will fall both in the teaching professions and among academics.

The team of authors around Plünnecke is therefore demanding massive efforts from schools to close the corona gaps: With systematic tests and individual tutoring, even outside of the classroom. The federal government has made available one billion euros for this, but the programs have in many cases not yet been fully implemented.

In addition, the schools alone would need 20,000 additional IT positions in order to advance digitization. However, they can hardly be obtained or not paid for, according to the municipalities.

In order to enable the influx of more foreign skilled workers, the new government must further de-bureaucratize immigration. If foreigners had not increasingly taken up MINT professions in the past few years – especially refugees, people from India and China – there would be a shortage of half a million skilled workers today, the IW emphasizes the importance of immigration.

The head of the Federal Employment Agency recently called for 400,000 migrants to move in every year in order to alleviate Germany’s personnel problems. The traffic light parties are planning a points system.

Stifterverband warns of a bottleneck in the IT area

The Stifterverband also warns of a bottleneck, especially in the IT area: by 2026, more than 780,000 people with expertise in the areas of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) through to hardware / robotics development alone would be required, according to one Study by the association with McKinsey, which is available to the Handelsblatt. The basis is a survey of around 500 companies and authorities. In contrast to the IW, however, it is about total demand, not about the gap between supply and demand.

The survey showed that the skills “data analytics and AI”, “software development” and “IT architecture” are particularly in demand. After all, the universities have already significantly increased the number of technology-related courses in the past three years: For example, the number of specialized tech courses has almost tripled to 311 since 2018.

This should also increase the number of graduates – currently only around 40,000 people complete a general or specialized degree in IT every year.

In order to meet the general demand, the universities would have to “significantly advance” their training and further education efforts, warns the Stifterverband again and again – for example through extra-occupational certificates or weekend workshops.

This requires a legal framework that allows universities. To offer advanced training courses at a cost that covers costs, as the Science Council recently demanded. Service centers that specifically take care of in-service training could be financially supported by the state and operated by the universities.

Women make up only 15 percent of the MINT employees

Both the IW and the Stifterverband renew their demand to make the important MINT professions more attractive for women. So far they only make up a good 15 percent of the workforce here.

The enormous differences, however, show the potential: women almost completely dominate the mathematics and science professions such as pharmaceutical and technical assistants or chemical laboratory assistants. The proportion of women in the academic biologist and chemist professions is now 46 percent, and in the mathematician and physicist professions 30 percent.

The IW is once again urging girls to be better supported early on in school, because relevant studies have shown time and again that they and their parents systematically underestimate their abilities here. “In the lower secondary level, for example, only 8.3 percent of girls can imagine working in a MINT profession later,” says FDP politician Thomas Sattelberger, who heads the national initiative “Creating MINT Future”. “That puts pressure on the innovative strength of our country.”

The motivation situation is favorable, because 62 percent of young women between 17 and 24 years of age are very worried about climate change – compared to 46 percent of young men.

Therefore, with a stronger integration of sustainability issues in the classroom and in extracurricular initiatives, with a more cliché-free professional and study orientation and better feedback on the strong skills of girls and women, “more young women could be won over to STEM training and studies” , Sattelberger is convinced.

More: The German economy lacks hundreds of thousands of people – there is a threat of a standstill.