Vacancies for skilled labour in German IT sector double to 82,000 

There is a severe shortage of skilled workers in the German IT sector, with the number of vacancies almost doubling to 82,000 this year, the German Association for IT, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom) said Thursday.

Eighty-two per cent of chief executives and HR managers say they have IT vacancies they cannot fill, which Bitkom chief Bernhard Rohleder described as a state of affairs that “could soon turn into a threatening impediment to growth.”

Rohleder said that the problem is not only due to a lack of candidates with the required skills, but also because of the candidates’ salary expectations.

According to the research, 76 per cent of chief executives and HR managers said candidates demanded “too much pay.”

The labour shortage is resulting in “good candidates being too expensive for many companies,” Rohleder said.

The IT sector is not the only part of the German economy facing a growing labour shortage. A study released earlier this year found that one in two German businesses is having trouble filling positions that require skilled labour.

Of 24,000 businesses included in the survey, roughly half said that the skilled labour shortage that has plagued Germany is starting to affect their business, while only slightly over a third said the same thing a year earlier.

Source: dpa