IT skills shortage in German companies

The shortage of skilled workers is a vexed issue in Germany. It can be seen across all sectors and there is no sudden end in sight. According to new findings, not even among IT specialists. According to a recent Bitkom study, there is a shortage of 137,000 IT experts in Germany, which is even higher than before the pandemic.

A record high that will continue to increase despite significantly higher salaries, at least that is what Achim Berg, president of Bitkom, fears. "The shortage of skilled workers is expected to worsen in the coming years," he says in the study. The study by the digital association is based on surveys with 854 companies in Germany. These surveys show that around three quarters of companies are experiencing a shortage of skilled workers, whereas 10% fewer confirmed this in 2021. The number of companies that expect higher numbers in the coming years has also risen from 66 % to 70 % compared to the previous year. So there are no signs of improvement internally in the companies either.

Achim Berg wants the immigration of foreign skilled workers to be facilitated in order to stem the crisis. He says it must be made easier for skilled workers from other countries to come to Germany and work here, because the gap cannot be closed only with people in their own country. This is mainly because the numbers of students have not been sufficient in recent years. In 2021, only 72,000 people started studying computer science, of which only slightly less than half actually complete it. This is why the companies themselves are calling on politicians to promote the immigration of IT experts from abroad. In addition, the president of Bitkom suggests that the professional experience people have should be regarded just as well as a university degree.

Another suggestion to curb the shortage of skilled workers is to automate business processes in German companies. Process automation cannot be used to hire more people, but the skilled workers a company already has can be used more wisely. Tasks that are repetitive and mindless can easily be automated, leaving more resources for important tasks. So both sides benefit from process automation, on the one hand the company, which can process more tasks in the same amount of time, and on the other hand the employees, who no longer have to do boring and pointless tasks.