Shortage of skilled workers causes problems for companies

Despite all the warnings of an economic slowdown, 60 percent of companies in the electrical and electronics industry expect the trend to remain the same in the coming year, with 26 percent even expecting an upturn.

Companies cite the shortage of skilled workers (60%) as the greatest threat to a slowdown in the economy, ahead of the effects of Brexit (39%), political uncertainty (35%) or Europe's economic weakness (33%).

Industry companies and universities in Germany can no longer find enough skilled workers, i.e. engineers and IT specialists. Corporations with more than 5,000 employees, medium-sized companies, start-ups and universities are equally affected.

"In order to meet their need for qualified employees, corporations, SMEs, start-ups and universities only have one chance: they have to recruit their staff from abroad. Almost one in four is forced to do so"

says the CEO of the VDE, Ansgar Hinz.

This means that the shortage of suitable specialists is still virulent. IT security experts in particular are in demand or even desperately sought after. 87 percent of universities and 70 percent of companies have difficulties recruiting IT security specialists.

In the next ten years, Germany will need well over 100,000 more young electrical engineers than are being trained here. The penny has literally dropped.