For workers with low qualifications and in helping jobs, a job change can mean relegation, according to a study. Specialists, on the other hand, can benefit – not only in terms of salary.
Employees who do unskilled or semi-skilled work apparently have little chance of advancement when changing jobs. This is the result of an analysis by the Bertelsmann Foundation on career changes and the consequences for those affected. Skilled workers and specialists primarily benefit from the prospect of better pay associated with a new job.
Changing jobs can increase working hours
A new professional start pays off above all when employees switch to related activities. “The increase in wages can then be up to 3,500 euros gross per year higher than when switching to unrelated professions,” it said. “The more knowledge from the old job can also be used in the new job, the greater the chance of a successful job change.”
For specialists, a successful new professional start not only pays off financially – it also increases working hours. According to the study, employees who start in a closely related job spend an average of 6.2 more days a year on the job than those who switch to a completely different job. With a less related job, the plus after the change is at least 4.3 days.
Assistants often without any chance of advancement and better pay
According to the analysis, “helpers” in particular are disadvantaged. This describes the level at which a person is employed, study author Roman Wink explained. This helping activity does not require any professional training. In many cases, these are low-skilled, i.e. people without a professional qualification. However, people with professional qualifications could also be employed as assistants.
According to the information, more than eleven percent of these employees change their job every year – for skilled workers it is only around seven percent. In addition, the helpers then work twice as often in a job that is new to them than employees in higher-skilled jobs. When “job-hopping” they would have to focus more on the demands of the labor market than on their existing skills – and therefore have to be retrained again and again. Therefore, the acquisition of partial qualifications up to the vocational qualification is “an important lever”, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation.
Women disadvantaged when changing jobs
In addition, women are often worse off when changing jobs. For them, too, vocational training improves their chances of advancement, but it cannot eliminate the disadvantage in a gender comparison. Men with training succeed in 82 percent of job changes from helper to specialist, for women it is just under 77 percent. In addition, even with training, the risk of relegation from a professionally qualified job is 13 percent higher for women than for men with only 9 percent.
Skills need to be made more visible
Tobias Ortmann, the foundation’s labor market expert, emphasized that higher labor force participation is a decisive factor in the fight against the shortage of skilled workers. If the change is successful, it would also be a win for the employer. The study highlighted that, in most cases, the low-skilled and helpers have usable skills, even if these are not formally supported by certificates. Therefore, procedures are needed to make the skills visible, demanded Wink.
Last week, an analysis by the Federal Employment Agency (BA) revealed that there is a shortage of skilled workers in every sixth profession in Germany. In 200 of the approximately 1,200 assessed occupations there was a bottleneck last year – 52 more than in 2021. The number of bottleneck occupations thus rose to a new high.
According to the BA, the nursing professions, professional drivers, medical specialists, construction and craft professions, childcare, automotive engineering and IT professions are particularly affected by the shortage of skilled workers. Compared to the previous year, hotel or catering services, metal construction and bus drivers have been added in 2022. Half of the vacancies last year were in one of these professions with a shortage of skilled workers.