Survey of companies: greatest risk: shortage of skilled workers

The search for personnel is becoming more and more difficult for German companies. According to a study, the shortage of skilled workers is now the greatest risk – ahead of rising raw material and energy costs.

According to a study by the management consultancy Deloitte, the attempt to find qualified personnel is becoming the biggest problem for German companies. “The shortage of skilled workers is now the most important risk for companies, followed by rising raw material costs, increasing regulation and energy costs,” wrote chief economist Alexander Börsch in the study published today.

The consultants interviewed 158 CFOs at German companies in September. Two thirds named the shortage of skilled workers as a high risk. “That means that the tight labor markets are holding companies back,” said Börsch. “The shortage of skilled workers runs through all industries.”

Supply collapse soon in Germany too?

The construction industry suffers the most, where the difficult search, according to Deloitte, affects almost three quarters of the companies. “In addition to material bottlenecks, the shortage of skilled workers is increasingly becoming a problem for the construction industry,” the Ifo Institute recently confirmed. According to a survey by the Munich researchers, every third building construction company had problems finding skilled workers in September. In civil engineering, as many as 38 percent complained about a lack of suitable applicants.

The logistics industry is also complaining of a shortage of truck drivers. 35,000 drivers leave their jobs every year, only 15,000 are newly trained in Germany. First voices are now warning that scenarios similar to those in Great Britain could threaten in the coming years. Strict visa regulations had led to a glaring shortage there. The Road Haulage Association estimates that there is a shortage of around 100,000 truck drivers. The result: massive delivery problems for gasoline and food.

“We are running into a creeping supply collapse in Germany too,” said Dirk Engelhardt, board member of the Federal Association of Freight Transport, Logistics and Disposal (BGL). The ver.di union, among others, contradicts these warnings.

Structured immigration required

“Germany is running out of manpower,” said the head of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), Detlef Scheele, of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. Due to the demographic development, the number of potential workers in typical professional age will fall by almost 150,000 as early as 2021. In the coming years it will be “much more dramatic”. In July, a total of 34.6 percent, more than a third of German companies complained about a shortage of skilled workers, according to a survey by the Ifo Institute. That was the second highest value ever measured.

Germany can only get the situation under control with significantly higher immigration, said Scheele. According to the BA, the labor force in this country is insufficient to meet the demand. “We need 400,000 immigrants a year. That is significantly more than in previous years,” the agency boss predicted. In addition, the qualification of unskilled workers and longer working hours for involuntarily part-time employees are necessary.

Raw material and energy costs are also a major problem

According to Deloitte, the German companies are also seeing growing risk factors in raw materials and energy costs, “which have reached threatening proportions for 42 percent of companies”. In the automotive and chemical industries it is even around 70 percent.

In principle, the CFOs surveyed continue to assess the economic outlook as positive, albeit not as optimistic as in the spring or last autumn. When it comes to the business outlook for their own company, the retail and consumer goods industries were the most confident. “An important outlier is the auto industry, which is much more pessimistic than the other sectors when it comes to the next twelve months.”

The investment intentions of the companies and their willingness to hire are very high. “Here there are two long-term, very momentous developments,” said Börsch: “On the one hand, increasing scarcity on the labor markets, which is likely to become even more acute in the current decade due to demographic developments long ailing macroeconomic productivity and thus increase growth. “