31,000 people are currently being supported.
(Photo: IMAGO/Rolf Poss)
Berlin The title is striking: “No hands, no turning” was the title of the manager’s open letter to Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens). The bosses of Lichtblick, 1Komma5, Thermondo and other energy transition companies warn that if Germany does not ignite the “skills turbo” now, then the ambitious climate protection goals are in danger. The labor shortage is “currently one of the biggest challenges for climate protection,” says Lichtblick boss Constantin Eis.
Not just for climate protection. In construction, in care, in schools – employees are wanted everywhere. The shortage of staff has recently increased, said Vanessa Ahuja, board member of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), the Handelsblatt.
“And we will run into a blatant shortage of skilled workers and workers when the baby boomers retire.” Demographics will cause the labor force potential to shrink by seven million people by 2035, according to the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) calculated.
According to the competence center for securing skilled workers (Kofa), there are already no suitably qualified applicants for 530,000 vacancies. There are currently around 2.6 million unemployed. However, more than every second person is looking for a helper job, while only 20 percent of the vacancies do not require any special qualifications.
Read more about the shortage of skilled workers
A higher labor force participation rate among women could alleviate the labor shortage. According to the statistics office Eurostat, around three out of four women are now employed. However, the high part-time quota of female employees of 47.5 percent is only surpassed in the EU by Austria and the Netherlands. Unfortunately, however, there is still a lack of framework conditions, such as adequate childcare even in off-peak times, said Ahuja.
A lot has happened recently in the employment of older people. The employment rate of 55 to 64 year olds rose by ten percentage points to 72 percent between 2012 and 2021. This puts Germany in third place in the EU behind Sweden and Denmark.
534 million euros for the integration of the long-term unemployed
Skilled labor potential could still be raised among the unskilled and semi-skilled. Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) repeatedly points out that around 45,000 young people leave school every year without a qualification. And that in Germany there are 1.3 million people between the ages of 20 and 30 who have no initial vocational training. Even people who no longer have any prospects in their previous job due to the structural change can be prepared for new tasks.
The tools and funding are there. In order to reintegrate the long-term unemployed back into the labor market, the job centers run jointly by the BA and the municipalities spent 534 million euros last year, for example on wage cost subsidies to employers.
Employees can also qualify with funding from the BA, currently around 31,000. However, there are currently 25 different variants, says Ahuja. “Nobody can see through that anymore.” The BA board member therefore welcomes the fact that the federal government wants to simplify funding with the planned further training law. In the future there will only be three variants, staggered according to the size of the company.
But there are also elements in the draft bill for the further training law that Heil presented in December that the federal agency does not like so much. This applies, for example, to the planned training period. Employees should be able to take full or partial leave from their employer for qualification or retraining. They receive financial support for this.
Since part-time training is aimed at individual training needs, it should not be financed from unemployment insurance funds, as planned, but from taxes, emphasizes Ahuja. In addition, it must be clearly distinguished from other funding instruments.
>> Read here: Business associations criticize Heil’s concept for training time
From the BA’s point of view, a look at the finances is also important because the Nuremberg authorities want to start rebuilding the reserves that have been reduced to zero in the corona crisis this year in order to be prepared for future crises on the labor market. However, due to the new funding offers of the citizen’s income that has been in force since the beginning of the year and the new rules in the Further Education Act that have been known so far, the BA will face additional annual costs of 1.3 billion euros in the medium term.
Points system for immigration reform “not the silver bullet”
The signatories to the open letter to Economics Minister Habeck also emphasize that there is not always time for lengthy retraining. In some areas, such as photovoltaic installation, the federal government and the employment agency should pragmatically initiate quick qualifications. Not as a replacement, but as a supplement to the proven dual training path, write the company bosses. In addition, skilled workers with energy transition qualifications would also have to be attracted from abroad.
“We will run into a blatant shortage of skilled workers and workers when the baby boomers retire.”
(Photo: BMAS)
The federal government wants to help here with the planned immigration reform. Among other things, it is planned that skilled workers with professional experience should also be able to work in Germany in the future if their professional qualification is not yet recognized as equivalent. Ahuja speaks of a real paradigm shift here: “It’s really innovative that we don’t expect people who want to immigrate with a professional qualification to go through a lengthy recognition process.”
She is more skeptical about the so-called opportunity card, which uses a points system to enable foreigners to enter the country to look for a job even without a specific job offer. This is “certainly not the silver bullet”. The draft bill currently leaves open, for example, which authority should actually award the points in the future.
More: The immigration illusion – why more immigration won’t save us from labor shortages