Desolate mood in the trade and economy

There are politicians who love to swim in the crowd. And there are those who look as if their parents had forbidden them from touching anything in the toy store under threat of a two-day smartphone ban. First, Economics Minister Robert Habeck visited the craft fair in Munich this week, more of a swim-in-the-crowd connoisseur when the crowd is kind to him. On Friday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz came to the top-level discussion.

Habeck had Heinz Dotzauer show him how to lay small paving stones. “He was friendly and really interested. He also talked to the apprentices,” Dotzauer told SZ afterwards. He is a trainer for road construction at the Munich Ebersberg Building Guild. The Vice Chancellor probably didn’t do a bad job. “He definitely had a hammer in his hand,” says Dotzauer. There are lots of photos that show Dotzauer and Habeck kneeling on a covering fleece in the gravel bed and laying plaster. The Vice Chancellor has long since taken off his suit jacket.

Olaf Scholz doesn’t take off his jacket so quickly. On Friday he looked at the agricultural robot Feldfreund from the start-up Zauberzeug and asked the founder Rodja Trappe whether the robot is already better than humans, about the price, the performance and whether the robot works when in the field Pulls weeds and also recognizes rabbits. Scholz also interviewed Berkay Bayer, the head of the Solteq Group, which has developed roof tiles with integrated solar cells. Price, performance, questions like that. The Chancellor was allowed to attach a roof tile. The cordless screwdriver slipped twice and then the screw stuck in the wood. Jörg Dittrich, President of the Central Association of German Crafts (ZDH), quickly jumped to his side. He is an expert, the lobbyist is a master roofer.

They also talked: the Chancellor, Dittrich and the other lobbyists. In the press conference afterwards, Scholz extensively praised the work of the traffic light: the Growth Opportunities Act, the planned Bureaucracy Relief Act IV, the Skilled Immigration Act, and much more. Many things are not enough for the lobbyists. The forecasts about growth in Germany are always skeptical, says Scholz, simply because of the lack of workers. And adds: “Of course it doesn’t help if a lot of lobbyists and political entrepreneurs worsen the mood in the country, because then people keep their money in their savings accounts and don’t invest.”

Open detailed view

Many are now saying how important craftsmanship is in order to build all the necessary housing and achieve the energy transition. Who should screw the solar panels onto the roof and set up the heat pumps? What is written on the pink banners in front of the exhibition halls is true. “The craftsmanship. The economic power next door.” But this power is not so noticeable because it is spread across the country: almost 570,000 companies, well over five million employees, it could be more. According to ZDH estimates, there is a total shortage of around a quarter of a million skilled workers. The companies train thousands of people, but many apprenticeship positions remain unfilled. According to the ZDH, a good 20,000 positions were open at the end of November.

Craftsmanship suffers. The poor economic situation is hitting it with “full force,” says Patrik-Ludwig Hantzsch in Munich: “The mood is desolate.” Hantzsch heads economic research at the service provider Creditreform. He also names the reasons: the end of the construction boom, the increased costs, political uncertainties, the higher interest rates. And then there are some problems that the trade has been complaining about for a long time: bureaucracy and a lack of workers. Bankruptcies are increasing. According to Creditreform, there were 4,050 companies in 2023, almost a quarter more than in the previous year. “Not everyone feels bad in the same way,” says Hantzsch. Things are going particularly badly in the construction-related trades, while the current business situation in the automotive trade has improved.

What Hantzsch presents in aggregated data, Heinrich Traublinger and Olaf Zimmermann experience in business. “The situation is tense,” says Traublinger, master baker and confectioner as well as senior master, i.e. chairman of the bakers’ guild in Munich, Landsberg and Erding. According to him, high energy prices are causing problems for bakers. “After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, many had to sign new contracts with their energy supplier at the high prices at the time,” explains Traublinger. The fact that prices have now fallen again is of no use to these companies. Prices for grain and other raw materials have also risen. “We can’t raise our prices to the extent that we actually have to,” says Traublinger, who runs 20 branches in Munich. Bakers also gave up their shops in Bavaria.

Olaf Zimmermann, on the other hand, is doing well. He is head master of the Plumbers, Sanitary and Heating Technology Guild in Munich, which is also responsible for Dachau and Fürstenfeldbruck. He doesn’t like complaining about the traffic light coalition, at least not as loudly as others. “The goals of the Heating Act, even in its original form, i.e. the move away from fossil fuels in order to advance climate protection, are and were correct,” he says: “You just have to go outside. It’s February and it’s warm outside.” It’s just that the government’s communication was bad.

“Everyone wanted a new oil and gas heating system quickly.”

The improved amendment to the Building Energy Act (GEG), which has been softened compared to the first draft, has been in effect since the beginning of 2024. In summary, property owners have more time to switch from fossil fuels to climate-friendly energy sources. But at first the shot backfired, says Zimmermann. For his company, 2023 was “a huge year”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/.”Everyone wanted a new oil and gas heating system quickly,” says Zimmermann, because there was a threat of a ban. Others wanted a heat pump quickly. “People were totally unsettled and still are,” said Zimmermann.

Zimmermann employs 26 people, six of whom are trainees; his wife and son Kilian also work in the company. He prefers to do projects that he can oversee: private construction projects, kindergartens and hospitals, smaller commercial projects such as bakeries, which is why it works for him. “The money is in the basement. The German energy supply is totally outdated,” he says. “In the past 30 years, not enough has been done to existing buildings.” It’s not just about old boilers and gas boilers, but also about old water pipes and thermostats, “we have a renovation backlog.”

Companies that specialize in large-scale commercial projects are currently finding it difficult. “The high interest rates and the vacancies are causing problems for them.” There is a lot of capacity in classic new buildings, says Zimmermann. In conversations and on construction sites, he often hears the frustration and grief of his customers and guild members – about the increased energy prices, inflation, higher construction costs, the desperate search for trainees and employees, about “those in Berlin”. Traffic light coalition, anyway. But the failures go back much further because Germany has relied on cheap natural gas from Russia for too long. At least that’s how Zimmermann sees it.

“For many years we were just the radiator haulers and toilet bowl screwdrivers.”

Zimmermann also has many of the problems that plague his customers. He would like to talk to Olaf Scholz and Robert Habeck about the shortage of skilled workers, the burden of bureaucracy, and academization in Germany. “For many years we were just radiator haulers and toilet bowl screwdrivers,” says the craftsman. His company has always had vacancies for ten years. He offers employees who are retiring the opportunity to work a little longer. He employs people from seven nations. The fitters who manage the construction sites today come from Kosovo, Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea, says Zimmermann. Without workers from abroad, the staff shortage will become even worse due to demographic change.

After all, the reputation of craftsmen has increased. Zimmermann is pleased that Robert Habeck is promoting the craft. “Now people have understood that the energy transition cannot be achieved without us.” He doesn’t like the fact that people constantly say that craftsmanship is the bottleneck. The bureaucracy is extending the bottleneck, complains Zimmermann. “We are being bombarded with requirements and regulations.”