The German economy has been suffering from a shortage of skilled workers for years. A study now suggests that the state of emergency could also have something to do with gender stereotypes.
According to a study by the German Economic Institute (IW), there is a shortage of more than half a million skilled workers in Germany. The shortage of staff in social work, education, care, crafts and information technology is particularly great, the IW reported on Friday in Cologne. The newspapers of the Funke media group had previously reported on it.
According to the study, on a 12-month average from July 2021 to July 2022, there was a shortage of almost 540,000 qualified workers across all occupations in Germany. The largest skills gap is in social work, where there were no suitably qualified unemployed for almost 20,600 vacancies. That is a new record.
“These specialists are lacking, for example, in career entry support, in school social work, in youth, children’s and old people’s homes or in addiction counseling, i.e. wherever people need personal support to solve social problems,” says the study. The gap for educators is similarly large. Accordingly, more than 18,000 positions remained vacant in geriatric care.
Large gaps in heating and air conditioning technology
According to the study, a total of 87,000 skilled workers were missing in the trades last year. There are particularly large gaps in the area of building electronics and sanitary, heating and air-conditioning technology. Motor vehicle technicians and professional drivers are also desperately wanted. According to the IW, the shortage of skilled workers has also reached a new record level in IT: According to the study, there are even unemployed people with the right qualifications for nine out of ten vacancies nationwide.
The Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) reported a total of 1.93 million job vacancies in Germany for the second quarter of the year on Thursday – more than at any time since the survey began in 1992.
What is striking is that, according to the IW, the ten occupations with the greatest skills gaps are without exception typical male or female occupations in which the opposite sex is only rarely represented. The researchers emphasized that in order to combat the shortage of skilled workers in these areas, one must also break down gender stereotypes when choosing a career.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
