Gabriel: Businesses and apprentices focus more on bottleneck occupations

Businesses in Germany react to skilled labour shortages in numerous occupations with an increased vocational education and training provision.

The young generation, too, show increasing interest in these bottleneck occupations. These are the main findings of the study "Fachkräfteengpässe in Unternehmen – Unternehmen steigern Ausbildungsangebote in Engpassberufen" (Skilled labour shortages in companies – Companies increase vocational training provision in bottleneck occupations), which was published by the Kompetenzzentrum Fachkräftesicherung (Competence Centre for Safeguarding the Skilled Labour Supply) that is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

The German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Sigmar Gabriel: "The study for the first time verifies the link between the strained skilled labour situation in some occupations and the industry's commitment to vocational education and training. The companies must systematically continue to pursue this path of focusing on bottleneck occupations. That way, they can make an essential contribution towards ensuring the skilled labour supply. It is a step in the right direction for young people to show increased interest in bottleneck occupations, thereby improving their employment prospects in a targeted manner. This has to be supported by advice and information. We have to better tap our domestic skilled labour potential and at the same time need to attract qualified professionals from abroad to ensure growth in Germany in the long term."

The study shows that in the five past years German businesses have increased their vocational education and training provision in occupations suffering from a skilled labour shortage by almost 22,000 placements. The young people themselves draw consequences from the shortage signals in the employment market.

Applicant numbers have increased in 32 of 49 dual system bottleneck occupations. Yet more often than not this increase is not sufficient to fill all apprenticeship jobs. For example, in the fields of hearing aid audiology and construction work electrical engineering the ratio was only a respective 30 and 72 applicants per 100 apprenticeship jobs.

Conversely, some vocational training occupations showed a surplus of applicants. These occupations include that of photographer and animal keeper. If it were possible to increasingly win over these young people for bottleneck occupations, part of the skilled labour demand could be covered whilst at the same time getting more young people into an apprenticeship.

This is why the study advocates even more intensified occupational orientation advisory services. This could help young people to improve their understanding of employment market prospects regarding various vocational education and training occupations. The additional know-how increases the probability that young people will choose occupations suffering from skilled labour shortages and that the applicant surplus in some particularly sought after professions declines. This could make an important contribution towards reducing the 80,000 apprenticeship jobs that have remained unfilled according to a DIHK (Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry) report.

The study suggests another method of safeguarding the skilled labour supply: winning over international qualified professionals for the German employment market.

On the one hand, these include people with migration background who already live in Germany, but have not yet been integrated into the employment market. On the other, businesses can recruit qualified professionals directly from abroad. Information about this is available also on the Make it in Germany website (make-it-in-germany.com) as well as on the BQ portal (bq-portal.de).

The Kompetenzzentrum Fachkräftesicherung (kompetenzzentrum-fachkraeftesicherung.de, Competence Centre for Safeguarding the Skilled Labour Supply) makes an important contribution towards supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in finding and retaining qualified professionals.