Germany in crisis for workers, shortage in one of six professions, how can we apply

One in six occupations lack qualified workers, according to a study by the Federal Labor Agency: In 2022, 200 out of about 1,200 occupations have a shortage of personnel - much more than a year ago.

The Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg has just published the study on qualified employees during the past year. The results are shocking. The number of employees has decreased by a quarter within the year in the professions most affected by this phenomenon.

There are shortages in the professions related to guardianship, medical personnel, trades in the field of construction, in kindergartens and nurseries for children, in the technique of vehicles and in the field of Information Technology. Compared to the previous year, during 2022 there is a shortage of personnel in the hotel and gastronomy sector, in metallurgy and in urban service buses.

For the so-called analysis on the lack of qualified employees, the Federal Labor Agency analyzes 120 professions and evaluates them based on a total of 14 indicators. As a profession with a shortage of personnel, that profession is classified if there are six indicators that imply this phenomenon. Among these indicators are e.g. the duration of the vacancy, the unemployment rate in this profession and the development of the level of payments.

Many vacancies for few qualified employees

The beginning of 2022, according to the Federal Labor Agency, was quite promising. The difficulties with supplies seemed to be overcome and the consequences of the pandemic were in many sectors affordable. Russia's attack on Ukraine in February 2022 was a decisive event, when many people from Ukraine fled and among others found protection in the Federal Republic of Germany.

This development was felt in the labor market. The registration of Ukrainian citizens affected the labor market, causing the number of unemployed to increase in 2022. The needs of enterprises for new labor force, however, increased and the number of vacancies reached a new record value of almost two million.

Still no signs of improvement

Even in the construction professions in 2022 there were shortages at the federal level. In the differentiation according to the countries, however, there are some differences, such as in Berlin/Brandenburg where there is a shortage in the construction sector at height and in depth. While in some other countries there is currently a lack of architects and construction engineers.

At the federal level, there has also been a lack of experts in the field of Information Technology for years, and in this regard, it still does not seem that there will be an improvement in the situation. The transformation in this sector can further intensify the problem of finding qualified employees for this sector. In 2022, there were staff shortages mainly in the field of software development and programming./DW