Skills Shortage Outline 1 Definitions 2 An extract

Skills Shortage Outline: 1. Definitions 2. An extract of press articles 3. Some comments Norbert Becker, January 2018 1

1. Definitions Definition 1: Skilled worker A skilled worker is any worker who has special skill, training, knowledge, and (usually acquired) ability in their work. These workers can be either blue-collar or white-collar-workers, with varied levels of training or education. Source: English Wikipedia Norbert Becker, January 2018 2

1. Definitions 3 Definition 1: Shortage of skills A shortage of skills describes a situation of an economy, where a significant amount of jobs cannot be occupied by employees with a certain capability, because the job market offers not enough qualified employees. Source: German Wikipedia Norbert Becker, January 2018

2. Extract of press articles Wi. Wo 11/01/2017 The shortage of skilled workers is a mythos. Karl Brenke (DIW (German Institute for Economy)) speaks: • The mourning of enterprises is nothing but a load of wind. • Of course there are shortages in some branches, e. g. in the care, craft and in special IT-vocations. • One cannot talk about a nationwide shortage of skilled workers. Actually some personnel departments admit that the mythos of shortage of skilled workers helps to save their own reputation. The mythos is an excuse for all who cannot staff vacancies fast enough. There is no better excuse for personnel departments than this mythos. Norbert Becker, January 2018 4

2. Extract of press articles Wi. Wo 11/01/2017 If the shortage of skilled workers were really true the real wages would have to increase much stronger. But this is not the case. E. g. in 2017 the wages increased about 0, 7 %. That is the lowest rate since 2011. Who appreciates applicants and offers acceptable conditions has good chances to find proper candidates. An example for an acceptable condition is an unlimited working contract. Norbert Becker, January 2018 5

2. Extract of press articles 6 Manager Magazin 03/09/2017 The fairy tale of shortage of skilled workers. Jakob Osman, Expert for employer branding Of course there is a shortage of skilled workers but different from that shortage which we read in the newspapers. The numbers determined by IW (Institute of Commerce) or VDI (Association of German Engineers), e. g. until 2029 up to 390. 000 engineers will be missing, are questionable. Many people have forgotten that this institutes miscalculated their forecast in 2009 by 140. 000. The shortage of engineers as described above does not exist! Norbert Becker, January 2018

2. Extract of press articles 7 lobbyism Manager Magazin 03/09/2017 Enterprises like VW, Daimler, Siemens …. pay for the VDI and other lobby groups. These enterprises have in interest in a large amount of applicants and low wages. Therefore they exploit these lobby groups to complain of shortage of skilled workers in engineering, IT, etc. . Policy gets in on this too. This increases the interest of young people in studies like engineering, IT etc. . Perhaps this will result in an increase of students and later on in applicants. Norbert Becker, January 2018

2. Extract of press articles 8 Manager Magazin 03/09/2017 Of course there exists a real shortage of skilled workers. But this concerns not engineers, IT etc. but professions which have only a weak or no lobby. Examples are: care, education, craft, …. E. g. a nurse earns 2000 … 2000 € gross per month. How can one live e. g. in Duesseldorf or Munich based on this wage and feed a family? Our society has to rethink urgently and pay skilled workers without a study a fair wage! Norbert Becker, January 2018

2. Extract of press articles Joe Nocera Industry Week 24/10/2017, USA 9 Marc Benioff One Solution to Filling the Skills Gap? Apprenticeships, Of Course In mid-March, during one of those CEO meetings that President Donald Trump used to hold before they were disbanded, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce. com, was asked to make some brief remarks. One of Benioff’s passions is apprenticeships. “Let’s do that, ” the president replied, breaking into a big smile. “Let’s go for that 5 million. OK? ” Norbert Becker, January 2018

2. Extract of press articles Industry Week 24/10/2017, USA Nearly one out of five Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 are out of work. This mismatch is the skills gap. Between 2003 and 2012, according to Thomas Bewick, who advised the Blair government, the number of apprentices grew from 75, 000 to 800, 000 a year in the UK. It’s now up to 1 million a year. What one hears these days is that big U. S. companies that would like to try to start employing apprentices have lost hope that the Trump administration will ever do anything serious to push the issue along. Norbert Becker, January 2018 10

2. Extract of press articles 11 Detlef Scheele June 2017 Skilled labour situation in Germany There is no area-wide shortage of skilled workers in Germany. However there are shortages in some technical vocations, in civil engineering in some health and care vocations. Compared to the last analysis from December 2016 shortages in monitoring workers in the construction area became clearer. In the field of electro techniques a relaxation was noticed. Also in IT-applications the situation relaxed. Therefore the shortage detected in winter 2016 is not confirmed in June 2017 anymore. Norbert Becker, January 2018

3. Some comments During my last vocational years I often discussed the shortage of skilled workers with my former colleagues. Especially the shortage in the electrical engineering (EE) area. Our opinion was clear: • In EE the job chances are good up to very good. • There is no shortage of skilled workers in EE. The corresponding press announcements are a deliberate exaggeration which are pushed by lobby groups like VDI etc. in order to serve the interest of industry in a large amount of applicants and low wages. Norbert Becker, January 2018 12