Posts Tagged Employment
Value creation losses due to lack of STEM specialists
June 17th, 2013 | Thema: News
German companies lacked around 119,000 qualified workers at the end of April 2013 in the so-called STEM area, i.e. employees with qualifications in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. According to the spring STEM report from the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft (Cologne Institute for Economic Research), by 2020 there will be around 600,000 too few STEM specialists available on the German labour market to replace specialists leaving for reasons of age. The fact from 2005 to 2010 the number of employed STEM graduates over 55 and correspondingly qualified immigrants each increased by more than a third would also not alter this.
When the need for specialists to provide growth and innovation is added, the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft’s estimates even assume a lack of 1.4 million employees with STEM qualifications by 2020. According to scientific calculations every non-staffed STEM job causes a loss of value creation of 230,000 euros a year.
Employment in SMEs also stable in times of crisis
April 29th, 2013 | Thema: News
Employment in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Germany also remains stable in times of crisis. This is the result of a current study by the Bonn Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM, or Institute of SME Research) on employment in Mittelstand export companies, for which the researchers have evaluated official statistics for the years 2001 to 2009. Accordingly, the number of employees at all SMEs in Germany grew by 13.6 per cent between 2001 and 2009 – and even by 2.9 per cent in the crisis years 2008/09. In comparison: large companies reduced their employment by around 2.3 per cent in these two difficult economic years.
The IfM results also prove that SMEs – and niche providers above all – compensate for fluctuations in demand on domestic markets with export activities, thus stabilising employment. It is, however, large Mittelstand companies that are primarily active on foreign markets. In the IfM’s opinion this also confirms the basic assumption that tapping new markets contributes to reducing costs – and is thus interesting for companies above a certain size.
Positive labour market subdues start-up activities
March 25th, 2013 | Thema: News
The labour market in Germany continued to develop positively in 2012. Therefore, last year there were good opportunities for finding employment. This negatively influenced start-up activity: 775,000 people – and thus 60,000 or seven per cent fewer than in 2011 – decided on moving into self-employment last year. This is a record low for start-ups in Germany since 2000. This is the central result of the current KfW survey on business start-ups in Germany.
According to the evaluations of the KfW questionnaire, lower start-up activity has primarily manifested itself in fewer full-time founder start-ups (315,000 vs. 381,000 in 2011). This has also had an influence on employment effects. In 2012 a total of 383,000 full-time positions were created by new start-ups; of these 212,000 were accounted for by the business founder themselves and correspondingly 171,000 by jobs for employed staff. In comparison with 2011 this is a decline of 15 per cent. The number of jobs created fell to the lowest level since the start of the time series in 2005.
DIHK: growth stabilises at a low level
February 18th, 2013 | Thema: News
Growth started in Germany at the beginning of 2013. The mood of crisis has calmed and the current business situation of companies has stabilised, reports the Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammertag (DIHK, or Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry) on the basis of its latest growth survey. The DIHK growth survey at the beginning of 2013 evaluated more than 28,000 company answers. On this basis the DIHK expects growth of 0.7 per cent this year. This corresponds to the economic growth estimated in autumn 2012.
Furthermore, the DIHK forecasts a continued rise in employment. On annual average this will amount to an extra 150,000 jobs. This rise in employment will not lower the unemployment figure one for one, however, but will primarily soak up the “hidden reserve” and come from European employees.
Germany’s most important sectors lack engineers
October 29th, 2012 | Thema: News
At the moment 80,500 engineer positions are unfilled. This is the result of a current survey by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Köln (IW, or the Cologne Institute for Economic Research) and the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, or the Association of German Engineers). For this purpose the so-called engineer monitor has taken the new professional classifications used by the Federal Employment Agency into account for the first time. Of the 80,500 unfilled positions, most were in mechanical engineering and vehicle technology (25,500) followed by the energy and electrical technology sector (18,700). In six of the eight professional categories for engineers there were more unfilled positions than jobseekers in Germany in September 2012.
On average, the relationship between unfilled positions and unemployed engineers for all engineering professions was 3.5 to 1. The largest labour shortage could be seen in mechanical engineering and vehicle technology with a value of 8.3. But in metalworking and in energy and electrical technology the jobs on offer exceeded the labour on offer by factors of 6.2 and 6.1 respectively. The situation was comparatively more relaxed for other engineers and in raw material production and extraction. There were no shortages of specialists here – at least from a statistical point of view.