German survey examines hiring concerns

How can this be? I thought Germany was the land of the "over-qualified", are these unemployed 11+% not interested in these posts that are available, I know some unemployed people who won't accept a job because it's beneath them

Source: Businessweek.com

i nearly replied to this post, but my personal life consultants advized me to seek profesional advice before comiting myself.

From my point of view, the problem is as much with the employers. They usually specify a combination of qualifications AND experience that probably only 1 in 1 billion people have - i.e. the person who quit the job last month after getting a job in the US or UK for twice the salary. IF they'd be prepared to compromise and offer training (as many are now starting to do, according to the website) then that'd help too. That said, labour mobility is a problem in Germany. Most people want a job for life, next door to their mum and dad and oma and opa... Heimat...

Time or Newsweek (can remember off hand) had an article along the same lines, the age of Ageism (or as I like to say 50 and fired) is slowly coming to an end as the population ages. As they stated more and more employers are finding it hard to find enough young people to fill positions coming available. You see this particularly in the States where a booming economy is making harder and harder to find anyone regardless of age who is willing to work. More and more employers are will to compromise and hire that old fart off the street. Companies that hire older workers are finding they are sometimes better employees than young people.

My wife's company has the same problem, simply can not find enough people, they just had 50 people give notice over Christmas (in a company of 800) and they would hire 3 times that if they could find anyone. Of course they are only looking for recent university grads or experienced people under 40.

Still I find it hard to belive that European companies will ever hire an older person, Deutche Bank just forced out anyone over 50. I can't see them turning around and hiring them back.

From a Government point of view, getting someone to work a few extra years can add in millions in extra revenue, not only from pensions not paid out, but from the taxes the person has to pay.

I know someone who works in an Arbeitsamt, and she reckons that about 50% of the people she sees, really aren't employable. A lot have poor reading, writing and maths skills and so a huge array of skilled jobs are out of the window. There's also the problem that employers haven't really made workers keep their original Ausbildung skills updated, and so lots when they're made unemployed don't have what employers are looking for. The Arbeitsamt doesn't seem very good at offering courses that address specific gaps like a specific computer programme or something like that.

Found it, turned out to be in News Week not Time

The New Old Age

The biggest surprise to me was that Ford Europe was changing the production line in order to make it easier to older workers to stay on. Instead of booting you out the door at age 50 they are encouraging you to keep working.

Generally speaking in Germany the biggest shortage of workers will come in the trades as people retire off new ones aren't being trained, not due to the fact that companies won't take on apprentice's but the fact that there are fewer young people around.

I read about a utilities in America that did an informal survey of employees and discovered that within 5 years they'd lose half their mechanics to retirement with no plans to train new ones!

I still can't see things changing here, Daimler Chrysler is laying off 6000 white collar workers, they won't hand out pink slips but will instead retire off the older ones.


The problem is that those that can leave for greener pastures leaving behind the under and unemployable!