Youth Cult among Engineers - Potential Remains Untapped

More than 80 per cent of companies expect Germany to suffer from a significant shortage of engineers in the coming five to ten years. This is the result of a cross-sectoral survey among 330 businesses conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, in collaboration with VDI Nachrichten (VDI News).

As a response to this trend, companies hope to attract increasing numbers of young university graduates. About 75 per cent of the respondents attach great importance to the recruitment of young engineers. The youth cult in corporate HR policy is thus set to continue. Only 36 per cent of the respondents plan to reduce the incidence of early retirement and 23 per cent plan to use specific programmes for older employees. A large share of the companies therefore plans to do little to retain older engineers. At the same time, 92 per cent of the companies call on policy-makers to promote courses of study in the field of engineering and 80 per cent demand the introduction of courses with a greater practical component.

Despite the fact that 42 per cent of the companies claim that they are already struggling to fill vacant engineering positions, unemployed, foreign or female engineers are rarely considered as possible candidates for vacant posts. Less than 15 per cent of the surveyed businesses consider specific integration programmes for these marginalised groups to be important. A large proportion of engineering potential, which could serve to fill vacant positions, thus remains untapped.

Contact

PD Dr. Bernhard Boockmann, E-mail: boockmann@zew.de

Prof. Dr. Thomas Zwick, Phone: +49(0)621/1235-131, E-mail: zwick@zew.de