Acute shortage of care: Germany is desperately looking for skilled workers

According to a study, over 300,000 positions remain vacant within a year because there is a lack of qualified personnel in this country. There are long-term bottlenecks not only in care for the elderly, which is worst affected. The study also sees an information problem.

Between July 2019 and June 2020, there was an average shortage of 324,731 skilled workers in Germany to fill all vacancies. This is the result of a study by the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) in Cologne, which is available to the newspapers of the Funke media group. Care for the elderly is particularly affected by the shortage of skilled workers. On average, there was a shortage of 20,282 skilled workers to fill the vacancies. For every 100 vacancies there are only twelve unemployed people with a corresponding qualification who could be directly employed in care for the elderly.

In building electronics, too, the situation with 15,595 vacancies and only 19 suitably qualified for every 100 unemployed is tense, as is the situation in health and nursing care (13,614 vacancies, bottleneck ratio of 22 unemployed to 100 vacancies). Physio and occupational therapists are primarily sought for specialists, i.e. those who have a degree such as a master craftsman or a bachelor's degree. There is a shortage of 8940 specialists in physiotherapy, 3438 in occupational therapy.

Among the specialists with a master’s degree or diploma, there is a lack of social workers and social pedagogues. 13,799 positions are vacant. The public administration also has poor chances on the labor market. Although the skilled worker gap is only 3228 positions, with only 6 qualified unemployed per 100 vacancies, there is the smallest potential to close these gaps quickly.

"In gendered jobs – that is, jobs that are either predominantly carried out by women or predominantly by men – most jobs are advertised in bottleneck occupations," said study author Lydia Malin the Funke newspapers. She complains that many young people are not adequately informed. Although job security is important to them, there are still difficulties in attracting young people for training in the shortage occupations.

. (tagsToTranslate) Economy (t) Shortage of skilled workers (t) Germany (t) Care system