Once taboo, today a booming industry: The defense company Rheinmetall is pleased about the increasing number of applicants. And the company needs this to cope with growing demand.
There are two empty shells of tank ammunition on Julia Merz’s desk, next to a cup in the Ukrainian colors of blue and yellow with the inscription “Tanke nicely”, a thank you from Ukraine. The 27-year-old processes orders for arms deliveries to the war zone. The conflict is closer than you think at Rheinmetall’s headquarters in Düsseldorf.
She herself started working for the company during the Corona pandemic. At that time it was about procuring masks and ventilators. Now, she says, it’s like a 180 degree turn. It’s about the use of weapons and ammunition directly in combat.
Almost too much attention
Merz says that this has not yet brought her into a conflict of conscience. She always has discussions with others. But she feels a change: “In the past, my job wasn’t always well received because armaments was located in the dirty corner of the industry for a long time.” Today, with the changing times, things are different. Now she’s almost getting too much attention.
She herself belongs to a generation that was born and grew up in peace in Europe. “But now we are in a war situation in Europe, on this scale for the first time in decades. This is completely new for my generation. The fact that a well-fortified democracy must be defended is more present than ever for us Rheinmetallers.”
“Always a person in charge”
The war situation is not as tangible for everyone in the company as it is for Julia Merz. Rheinmetall’s Technology Center looks like a start-up. Jonas Felser and Robin Zatta conduct research on the automation of systems, autonomous driving and robotics on large screens. Everything that makes Jonas Felser’s engineer heart beat faster, as he readily admits, and that’s why the 32-year-old decided on the job.
But Robin Zatta also knows the conversations with friends and acquaintances and the critical questions. He conducted his interviews in the middle of the beginning of the war. You have to critically question yourself about what you’re doing, he says. And he came to his conclusion: “Of course we operate with weapons and weapon systems as well as with technologies for the civilian sector. In the end, a person is always responsible.”
Applicant numbers more than doubled
Many young people have apparently discovered an interest in the arms industry. Rheinmetall’s recruiting center received 108,000 applications last year alone. In 2018 there were still 45,000. The increasing interest comes at the right time for the company. Rheinmetall is growing and the order books are full. The company expects 38 billion euros for new orders from the 100 billion euro special fund alone.
New production sites are being set up, as is currently the case in Weeze on the Lower Rhine, where center fuselage parts for the F-35 fighter aircraft will be built in the future. For this alone, 400 new positions are to be filled in the next two years. Interviews are constantly being conducted in the recruiting center in Düsseldorf. Each of the 50 employees filled around 80 new positions last year.
Defense stocks are selling better than before
But people have also lost their fear of contact with the arms industry on the trading floor, says Christoph Schalast from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. While stocks from defense companies used to be a rarity in funds, they are now one of them.
Rheinmetall was added to the DAX in March last year and the share price is on the rise. This is a signal for the entire industry. “If armaments are working on the stock exchange, that means the mood is positive, and to that extent this can be transferred to all armaments companies.”
Changed perception in many areas
The decisive factor for this change in image was the change in times proclaimed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. And he didn’t just leave it at a speech in the Bundestag. Politicians have behaved very differently towards the arms industry than was the case in previous years, says Rheinmetall Human Resources Director Peter Sebastian Krause. In February, Scholz himself attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new ammunition factory in Unterlüß in Lower Saxony.
“The Chancellor literally said: ‘You are working for the good of our country!’ That is a statement that has done us enormous good,” said Krause. “And I think that speaks volumes about the changing perception that we’re experiencing in the public.” In fact, this is directly reflected in job interviews, according to recent experiences. Candidates would be much more at ease about accepting a position.