The slowing economy has reached the labor market. Nevertheless, the demand for labor remains at a 'comparatively high level', reports the Association of German Engineers (VDI). According to the VDI, there were still more than 124,000 vacancies to be filled on a monthly average in the third quarter, referring to the latest figures from the Engineering Monitor, which is compiled quarterly by the German Economic Institute (IW) on behalf of the VDI.

After the number of unemployed people in engineering professions reached a new record low in the first quarter of 2019, the economic slowdown is now also making itself felt in unemployment. Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, the number of registered unemployed rose by 5.2 %.

However, as engineering employers generally retain their permanent staff and some of them would only temporarily refrain from hiring new staff, the VDI believes that this problem is currently likely to primarily affect younger engineers with expiring project contracts and career starters.

In the individual occupational categories, the engineering labor market is developing very heterogeneously: Strongly production-related qualifications such as engineering professions in metal processing continue to experience a noticeable decline in demand, while construction or service-related qualifications remain in high demand.

The reason for this is that the respective economic sectors are being affected differently by the economic slowdown. The ongoing construction boom and the momentum of digitalization are having a positive impact, while the current crisis in the traditional industrial sectors is having a negative impact.

The traffic light remains green for IT professions. With an average of 43,580 vacancies per month in the third quarter of 2019, they were the largest category of vacancies in the engineering professions. According to the VDI, there is a particular demand for IT and electrical engineering interface skills.

Civil engineering professions also continued to record very high demand with around 34,700 vacancies.

A total of 29,490 vacancies were reported in the fields of mechanical and automotive engineering as well as energy and electrical engineering, which corresponds to a decline of around 24% of the total number of vacancies in the engineering and IT professions.

Compared to the same quarter last year, the occupational categories of mechanical and automotive engineering as well as technical research and production control also recorded a decline in demand for workers. According to the VDI, this reflects the slight downturn in the automotive and mechanical engineering industries.