Where are all the engineers gone?

Nowhere is manifested more clearly than the skills shortage among engineers. In July, a gap between supply and demand of nearly 36,000 gaped. The industry is now promoting to women, since only one in five is female engineering student.

08th August 2010

"The prices have gone clear," says Werner Maidl. The personnel manager of the Munich architectural and engineering Obermeyer knows what he's talking about. The office employs 1,200 people and offers design services in the business buildings, transport and the environment. New, good people are always in demand. But engineers are scarce.

In particular, construction and electrical engineers or specialists for the technical equipment of buildings. "To have up to 15 percent, the starting salaries for young engineers in the past three years increases," said Maidl. More than that: It is increasingly difficult to keep good engineers. Time and again, "says the personnel manager that there was attempts to poach them.
Shortage: Where are all the engineers gone?
German Engineers average 50 years old



Nowhere is manifested more clearly than the skills shortage among engineers. In July, a gap between supply and demand of nearly 36,000 - gaped trend is growing. Of all the land of the designers and mechanical engineers is shown by the offspring. 61 700 vacancies currently awaiting their occupation - 12 percent more than last year. There are no particular machine and vehicle construction engineers, electrical and civil engineers and industrial engineers, and especially in Baden-Wuerttemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria. This is shown by the statistics of the Association of German Engineers (VDI). They are snapshots - but with a clear direction in the coming decade, the number of missing engineers to rise to 200,000. Or so says Willi Fuchs, director of the VDI. there are currently 1.4 million engineers in Germany. 800 000 of them were actually employed as such. In the next 10 years are 450,000 in retirement. Because the German engineers are old, on average, 50 years old: "Every second person will therefore have to adopt in 2020." This alone makes a replacement demand of 45,000 per year. In addition, the federal government has spent the ambitious goal of investing 3 percent of GDP in research and development. For this too we need new engineers, and up to 70,000.

Of these, the universities are far away. 37 000 students graduate from universities every year on average. But could therefore only increase the numbers do not help students, says Heinz-Peter Schiffer, mechanical engineering professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt: "Then the quality suffers." Only more professors, more rooms and more money to prevent it. The quality is the decisive advantage of the German education, says Schiffer. Even now, so many foreign students come straight from China. Although there are incredibly many engineers are being trained, but Chinese have a German degree, the better international perspective.
Unresolved question of a growing shortage of skilled workers
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More foreign students could solve a young second problem: "Even now," the labor market researchers Werner Eichhorst says of the Institute for the Study of Labor IZA, "we see the impact of demographic change." The cohorts of school leavers would steadily smaller. We know about this development - and since the nineties the years. "Back then there were similar debates - for example, that has about Green Cards for Germany." Only no one responded, so that the unresolved question of a growing shortage of skilled workers has become even more urgent.

Also the reasons for this. The education systems in Germany changed very slowly, says the researcher. Unlike in the past, the engineers can indeed leave after three years with a bachelor's degree, the universities and work. Most want to continue studying but still. For just the master's degree is equivalent to the diploma.

Blame for the shortages were also the companies themselves, says Eichhorst. They had not their personnel policy set to the anticipated growing demand for skilled workers in the past ten to fifteen years, but lived from hand to mouth.
"More secure employment opportunities for engineers"

Shortage of new recruits: Who does research in the testing center by Carl Zeiss in ten years? Shortage of new recruits: Who does research in the testing center by Carl Zeiss in ten years?

Because the technique Country Germany there were long too many engineers. Who began in the late eighties to study mechanical engineering, earned often only a compassionate smile. "Even 2004/2005 60 000 engineers were unemployed," says director VDI Fuchs and refers to the constant ups and downs of the labor market for the sought-after today as hobbyists and tinkerers. Many were released into the crisis of the nineties. The young men lost - with so imponderable job opportunities - interest in the challenging course. The uncertainty was also on the corporate side so great that no one in the layoffs of the increasing specialization and the increasing automation of production just for the engineers are essential.

Are there any solutions? Researchers like Eichhorst are confident. First, send the job market for young people unmistakable signal: "Increasingly precarious working in the field of media and culture, and opportunities and safer working against a much higher return for engineers - which will soon make many young people think."
"The vast reserve are the women"

Eichhorst also sees the company in the duty. They should not shy away from the cost of training programs and a long-term personnel policy and would have to be content with candidates that fit perhaps not quite up to the job.

The greatest potential lies dormant but elsewhere: "The vast reserve are the women," says Ernst Schmachtenberg, Rector of RWTH Aachen. Admittedly, half of the students was female, but among engineers create one rarely more than 20 percent, but often less than ten percent. To get the women in the workplace, it will take though. But something is happening.