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Determining Labour Shortages and the need for Labour Migration in Germany
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Source: BAMF
The study maps out important aspects and basic assumptions in relation to the debate about current skilled labour shortages and future demands for skilled labour in Germany. It provides an overview of the most important parameters and calculation bases used to determine and further observe skilled labour shortages and skilled labour supply.
There are no signs of a nationwide shortage of labour or even of skilled labour in Germany. Currently, nationwide skilled labour bottlenecks can only be identified in the healthcare and nursing care professions. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, temporary and regional skilled labour bottlenecks certainly exist in other industries and can be recorded as a snapshot of the labour market.
Since there is no "King's variable" available to determine skilled labour shortages, it is difficult to adopt a methodological approach for working out exact figures. This is rendered even more difficult by the fact that the mobility of employees, the internal permeability of corporate structures and the orientation of job profiles are extremely dynamic.
The Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA) is responsible for conducting the so-called "skilled labour shortage analysis" that is published twice a year. Due to the large number of parameters that need to be taken into account and the problem associated with recording actual shortages methodologically, the Federal Employment Agency never mentions a specific number of skilled workers who are likely to be required in future. Migration into the German labour market in general and into shortage occupations in particular adheres to the economic principle of supply and demand.
Migration as a vital component
Against the backdrop of the demographic trend in Germany, political measures need to be taken, in order to ensure a sufficient supply of skilled labour available in the medium and long term. In view of the fact that the baby boomers of the 1950s and 1960s will be reaching retirement age in the foreseeable future, the issue of how to ensure a steady supply of skilled labour becomes more and more important, because the upcoming cohorts are much smaller than those leaving the labour market in the next years. And in this regard the question arises, how many immigrants are necessary to meet the need for skilled labour. Yet migration is an undisputed but by no means a singular component in the overall strategy to secure the basic supply of labour.
Migration from third countries is gaining momentum, compared to migration from other EU Member States within this strategy, because labour migration from third countries can be managed more effectively by amending statutory provisions. Moreover, other Member States of the European Union, from which the majority of immigrants came in recent years, are confronted with similar demographic changes. Thus, citizens of these states are bound to become a valuable human resource and will probably be in high demand in the labour markets of these EU countries in the foreseeable future.
Working paper 64 was drawn up by the national contact point of the European Migration Network (EMN) located in the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) as Germany’s contribution to a Europe-wide comparative investigation. It was co-financed by EU funds.
Study compiled by: Dr. Michael Vollmer