Desperate for Specialists

"One definitely notices that it's harder to get specialists and good experts," said Matthias Pauers. "We find average employees without a problem. But positions for employees with outstanding, special know-how are very hard to fill at the moment."

Pauers is the head of product development at Matrix 42, a German software manufacturer. Since the beginning of the year, he has only found very few job applicants who are qualified to work in the field. And he's not alone. There's also a dearth of specialists in mechanical engineering, electronics, pharmaceuticals and the chemical industry. German companies have ever more problems filling positions that require high qualifications. Teachers of science and medicine are also in extremely short supply.

"One reason is that society and, in part, companies didn't expect the vehemence of demand for German capital goods on the world market," said Volker Treier, an economist at the German Association of Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). "And that has to do with, above all, that one didn't know how China and India and other emerging nations would become part of the world economy."

Mid-sized companies, such as Matrix 42, have an especially difficult time finding specialists, who are mostly snapped up by big firms. And, despite the fact that millions of people are out of work in Germany, most of them are unqualified for high-level jobs.

From bad to worse

The situation is likely to get even worse over the next 10 years, said Peter Schnur of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). "The most negative vision is that we will have a relatively high lack of specialists concurrent with high unemployment among people whose qualifications are low."

It's problematic that Germany's birth rate is also very low. The IAB estimates that the 700,000 children born this year will enter the labor market when today's 1.5 million 40-year-old Germans reach retirement -- less than half as many people will be available to take the vacant places in the working world.

"In the mid- and long terms, we face something like a reversal of the trend," said Schnur. "And it will be such that in the long-term future, that is, around the end of the next decade, it's highly probable there will be a significantly lower labor force. Not with a decline in jobs but rather with fewer people who want work."

But having a job supply larger than the labor force won't necessarily mean lower unemployment. If young people aren't trained to meet the requirements of highly specialized jobs, relatively high unemployment will remain a problem despite demographic developments.

The search for solutions

Matthias Pauers and his colleagues believe they can make a difference by providing incentives for potential new employees.

"In addition to paying adequately, one should invest in training employees," Pauers said. "And one should give new employees the perspective that they, even if they are specialists, can still get further training."

Companies have recognized that education is essential to ensure they can find the employees they need. More should be done in that area, according to the DIHK's Treier. School kids should study more math and science to develop the curiosity -- and the prerequisites -- to pursue studies or other training in those areas.

For the time being though, companies must find a way to satisfy their labor needs. The Riedlbauer Group, a German firm focused on outsourcing support services and telemarketing, which has difficulties finding specialists in information technologies and stochastic, a field of mathematics, decided to tackle the problem by offering a training program.

Opportunities for older people

But recruiting employees abroad is another possibility. CEO Erich Riedlbauer has hired specialists from Russia and has put out feelers for IT experts in the United States.

He is, however, party of a minority among German businesspeople. Only 6 percent of German companies would consider searching for specialist staff abroad, according to a DIHK poll. Most employers first want to exhaust the possibilities at home, and 15 percent said they will focus on older specialists when personnel shortages get worse. More than half of those surveyed said that training was the way to deal with the lack of specialists in the future.

That may just translate into new opportunities for older, unemployed people, who have a particularly hard time re-entering the professional world in Germany.