📋 Tender Overview
Many companies are confronted with a shortage of skilled workers even during the Corona crisis. However the recruitment of qualified workers from abroad has so far only played a subordinate role as the Bertelsmann Stiftungs new skilled worker migration monitor shows. The Skilled Workers Immigration Act passed at the beginning of 2020 opens up potential to mitigate the effects of demographic change.The shortage of skilled workers in Germany remains a challenge for the German economy even in times of the corona pandemic. This is shown by the current skilled worker migration monitor from the Bertelsmann Foundation which includes a survey of companies and secondary data analyzes. Last year 55 percent of companies stated that they had fewer skilled workers than needed. The need for people with completed vocational training was greatest 37 percent followed by academics 27 percent. The situation varies depending on the size of the company professional field and region.In order to counteract the shortage of skilled workers the companies surveyed are primarily focusing on training new employees and on keeping the existing staff in their own company through further training and a better work-life balance. In contrast only 17 percent said they recruited skilled workers from abroad. They mainly recruit staff from the EU and other European countries followed by Asia and the Middle East. There is very little experience with skilled workers from Africa. The companies cite language communication problems and the difficulty of correctly assessing the qualifications acquired in their country of origin as the greatest hurdles when recruiting from abroad. Legal hurdles and corona-related entry restrictions on the other hand only play a subordinate role.The OECDs attractiveness indicators provide an explanation for why skilled workers from non-EU countries only play a subordinate role on the German labor market. Compared to other OECD countries Germany therefore offers them poorer professional opportunities.According to the migration experts at the Bertelsmann Stiftung the skilled immigration law passed in early 2020 is an important instrument to make it easier to recruit skilled workers from non-EU countries. In order to tap this potential even better however it is necessary to create greater transparency about the professional competencies of foreign specialists and to facilitate the recognition of qualifications acquired abroad. A new perspective would also be opened up with the talent partnerships in the EU migration pact In the training sector in particular international cooperation is required to improve the compatibility of foreign vocational training systems with that of the Federal Republic. These are agreements between countries of destination and origin to mediateHow exactly the Corona crisis in Germany will affect the need for and the immigration of skilled workers is not yet foreseeable. According to the authors of the study however the pandemic does not change the structural challenge of demographic change for the German economy. In fact the corona-related decline in migration led to a population decline in the first half of 2020 the first since 2010. Skilled workers from abroad will play an increasingly important role in light of the falling number of local workers.
