Posts Tagged Engineers
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.
Engineers indispensable for German innovation sectors
April 30th, 2012 | Thema: News
Engineers drive innovation in Germany. This is the result of a survey by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW Köln) in cooperation with the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, or Association of German Engineers). According to this survey the five sectors in Germany with the highest proportion of engineers among their employees produce innovations worth around 73 billion euros every year. This is equivalent to more than 60 per cent of the expenditure on innovations made by the entire economy. Merely 12 per cent of employees in Germany work in these sectors.
According to the study these five innovations sectors are technical services and services in research and development, the electrical industry, mechanical engineering, vehicle construction and IT/telecommunications. At 562 billion euros the companies in these five sectors generated around 45 per cent of all German export income from trade in goods and services in 2011. In addition, these branches of industry achieved a foreign trade surplus of 223 billion euros – 47 per cent more than the entire economy put together, because other sectors posted a foreign trade deficit. According to information from the VDI a total of 1.6 million engineers work in Germany’s companies.
VDI sees good perspectives for Germany as a technology location
May 30th, 2011 | Thema: News
According to a current study from the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, or Association of German Engineers) Germany will continue to remain a leading location worldwide for technology and innovation. To do this future political decisions had to build on technological solutions, continued the study “Technology Location 2020″. Among the sectors in which German leads the VDI includes renewable energies. The study assumes that this sector will invest more than 200 billion euros in Germany by 2020.
“Germany has the potential to become a leading market for resources efficiency. In the face of rising energy and raw materials prices, good perspectives are opening up for German technologies with cross sector expertise,” said VDI President Bruno O. Braun at the presentation of the study. The report also sees a positive future for traditionally strong German sectors, such as the automotive industry and mechanical engineering. The VDI sees one of the most important tasks here is cultivating citizens when there is scepticism towards new technologies and campaigning for greater acceptance of technology.
Engineer bottlenecks despite employee freedom of movement
April 18th, 2011 | Thema: News
The Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Cologne (IW, or Cologne Institute for Economic Research) is assuming that despite freedom of movement for employees from the EU accession countries, which is coming into effect from 1 May 2011, nothing will change in the lack of engineers in Germany. Background information: according to surveys from the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, or Association of German Engineers) on average 36,000 engineers were missing from the German employment market in 2010, meaning a loss of value creation of € 3.3 billion. The VDI expects this gap to be 65,000 in 2011.
As the IW is now reporting, the new freedom of movement will not change anything for engineers, because these highly qualified staff have already had freedom of movement for four years. In addition, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden had already opened their borders in 2004. When Germany finally caught up there were hardly any engineers prepared to emigrate left in East European employment markets. The IW also points out that Germany is less interesting for East European engineers because they are in demand worldwide and engineers are well paid everywhere.
Germany lacks almost 50,000 engineers
January 24th, 2011 | Thema: News
In Germany there are 72,000 unfilled vacancies for engineers. In contrast, only 23,200 engineers are registered as unemployed. Thus German companies lack almost 50,000 engineers. These current figures were calculated by the Verein der Deutschen Ingenieure (VDI, or the Association of German Engineers) in cooperation with the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft in Cologne for December 2010. The VDI describes these figures as “frightening” and also does not expect that the lack of engineers will improve over the next few years.
In the economically strong States of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and North Rhine Westphalia alone, more than 41,000 engineer positions remained unfilled: 17,100 in Baden-Württemberg, 10,300 in Bavaria and 13,900 in North Rhine Westphalia. There is particularly high number of unfilled vacancies in mechanical engineering and vehicle manufacturing. Companies in these sectors are looking for 26,000 engineers. 16,300 electrical engineers and 11,900 construction engineers are also missing.
The lack of engineers is not a trivial problem. It not only hinders company growth but also costs jobs: according to economic estimates 2.3 additional jobs depend on every engineering job.