labour market
Skilled trades sees an intensification of the shortage of skilled workers
A table in his workshop is working on a workpiece with a Japanese chisel. Photo: picture alliance / dpa
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Skilled workers from the trade are desperately wanted. And, in the opinion of the association, many projects on climate protection, digitization or the transport turnaround will exacerbate the problem.
The craft sector sees an intensification of the shortage of skilled workers in Germany. “The companies are desperately looking for qualified specialists,” said the General Secretary of the Central Association of German Crafts (ZDH), Holger Schwannecke, on Friday.
The situation is already similar to before the start of the Corona crisis. The shortage of skilled workers is currently proving to be a brake on an otherwise even stronger sales growth in the craft sector.
The already immensely high demand for skilled workers will continue to increase as the “traffic light” negotiators agree on ambitious goals for climate protection, the energy and transport transition, digitization and the shaping of demographic change, said Schwannecke. “Because it is mainly craft businesses and their employees who implement it in the end.”
The association corrected its – albeit less optimistic – sales forecast from the spring significantly upwards, as the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” had first reported. The ZDH now no longer expects just a 1 percent increase in sales, but 2 percent. In the course of the corona lockdowns, many people decided to redesign their apartments and houses. Currently, customers would have to wait an average of 9.3 weeks before a craftsman could carry out an order, Schwannecke told the newspaper. At the same time in the previous year it was 8.0 weeks.
“If the economic recovery in the craft sector is to continue, the future government must ensure that this recovery process is perpetuated,” said Schwannecke. “In view of the unfortunately significant increase in infections, it must create planning security for our operations with regard to corona protection concepts, work specifications and vaccination status queries.” In the event of delivery and material bottlenecks, politicians must use the options available to them, for example with public contracts.
The central building block for closing the growing skilled labor gap is vocational training. “That is why the traffic light parties must not stop at ambitious announcements, but must ensure that there is real equality between vocational and academic education more emphatically than before.”