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View All NewsGermany – Immigrants boosting skilled labour force but mostly in western states
The number of workers in STEM jobs (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths), known in Germany as MINT (Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft, and Technik), is rising in Germany, thanks to immigration from other EU countries. However, companies are suffering from a latent lack of skilled workers, partly due to xenophobia in eastern German states, reports EurActiv Germany.
Germany hopes to become a leader in smart cities, the next industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), and modern environmental technology; and companies are convinced these fields hold sustainable growth opportunities and new jobs.
But, for years, the country has not been able to find enough skilled workers to fill a growing number of posts.
According to this year’s MINT report from the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW), 137,100 qualified workers with a natural sciences or technical degree are missing from the workforce – the highest level since December 2012.
Experts from Germany’s economic sector blame access to full retirement at 63 as the most severe cause.
“Already in the first quarter after the regulation was introduced, around 10% of the actual, available MINT workers aged 63 and over were lost,” explained Michael Stahl, managing director of education and national economy of the employers’ association Gesamtmetall.
The current gap in skilled workers would be larger, the MINT report pointed out, if Germany did not gain skilled workers from abroad. The number of foreigners in the MINT workforce increased by 11.3% from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the third quarter of 2014, over four-times as sharply than for German workers in these fields.
The report states that migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, play a large role.
This is due in large part to the recent opening of the [EU] labour market to workers from these countries, Michael Hüther, director of IW, pointed out. Those who move to Germany from these countries are predominantly hired as skilled workers.
MINT workers from Spain are also a proportionately large group on the qualified labour market, primarily due to the Spanish economic crisis, he said.
But economic analysts warn that eastern German states, in particular, are wasting the potential of foreign skilled workers and run the risk of experiencing a devastating drop in their skilled labour force.
“Mental reservations against immigration are the most significant there,” explained Thomas Sattelberger from the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA).
These reservations are considered fatal for the Federal Republic’s eastern states, where companies are faced with a wave of retirement among MINT workers. In western Germany 16% of the MINT labour force is older than 55 on average, in eastern Germany the rate is 20%.
“Eastern German states run the risk of sawing through the branch that they actually need most urgently,” said Mr Sattelberger.
Germany’s east still remains less attractive for foreign workers.
Innovation powerhouses in the west like Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hesse and Bavaria have between 8% and 11% foreign workers in their MINT labour forces. Meanwhile, in larger eastern German states foreign workers only make up between 1.4% and 2.2% of that group.
In conclusion, the report states: “Without special efforts to be immigrant-friendly, the innovative strength in eastern German regions threatens to erode.”