Ifo Institute
Skills shortage at its peak
The shortage of skilled workers has reached a peak and is placing an increasing burden on the German economy. Labor market experts do not expect the situation to ease for the time being.
At 49.7%, almost half of all companies surveyed by the Munich-based Ifo Institute said in July that they are being restricted by a shortage of qualified specialists. This is the highest figure since the quarterly survey began in 2009 and represents a further increase of 6.1 percentage points on the previous record set in April.
"More and more companies are having to scale back their business because they simply cannot find enough staff," said Ifo labor market expert Stefan Sauer. "In the medium and long term, this problem is likely to become even more serious."
The problem has increased significantly since 2009: At the beginning, the values were still in the region of 10%, but by 2019 they had already risen to around 30% before the coronavirus crisis caused a temporary slump. Since the beginning of last year, however, things have been on a steep upward trend again.
As has been the case for most of the period under review, the service sector has been hit the hardest at 54.2%, followed by manufacturing at 44.5%, retail at 41.9%, construction at 39.3% and wholesale at 36.3%.
The individual sectors most affected were temporary work (77.9%) and legal and tax consultancy, auditing (71%). The pharmaceutical and chemical industries reported the lowest shortage of skilled workers at 17.2% and 24.1% respectively. The automotive industry is also below average at 30.5%, as is mechanical engineering, albeit at a lower 43%.
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