bda-arbeitgeber-logo-inversbda-arbeitgeber-logobda-arbeitgeber-logo-inversbda-arbeitgeber-logo-invers
MENUMENU
  • TOPICS
        • Employment and Labour Market
          • Labour market policy
          • Company personnel policy
          • Equal opportunities
          • Diversity
          • Equal pay
          • Securing skilled labor
          • Flexible employment
          • Women in management positions
          • Refugees
          • Inclusion
          • Standardization
          • Contact person
          • Immigration and integration
        • Labour law and collective bargaining policy
          • General applicability
          • Industrial action
          • Labour & collective bargaining law
          • Working time
          • Time limit
          • Works Constitution
          • Bureaucracy reduction
          • Data protection
          • Protection against discrimination
          • Parental leave
          • Posting
          • Insolvency
          • Protection against dismissal
          • Minimum wage
          • Co-determination
          • Mobile work
          • Maternity protection
          • Pandemic
          • Care time
          • Self-employment
          • Tariff autonomy
          • Collective Bargaining Agreement
          • Collective bargaining unit
          • Tariff policy
          • Collective bargaining
          • Collective agreement
          • Part-time work
          • Restructuring
          • Holiday law
          • Contracts for work
          • Whistleblowing
          • Temporary work
        • Education and vocational training
          • Training market
          • Professional orientation
          • Education policy
          • Education 4.0
          • Dual education
          • dual study
          • Permeability
          • Early childhood education
          • Higher Education Funding
          • Lifelong learning
          • Teacher Education
          • Reorganization of education and training
          • STEM Professionals
          • Economic education
          • Accreditation/Quality assurance
          • SCHOOLBUSINESS Germany
        • Digitalization and innovation
          • Agile working
          • The future of work
        • Europe and International Affairs
          • Occupational safety and health in Europe
          • Contact person
          • European Works Council
          • European legislation
          • European minimum wage
          • European Semester
          • Names

          • Contact person
          • Contact person
          • OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
          • Social security in Europe
          • Location Europe
          • Social dialogue
        • Social policy and social security
          • Old-age poverty
          • Work made in Germany
          • Occupational safety
          • Contribution and registration law
          • Company pension scheme
          • Shortage of company doctors
          • Health insurance
          • Long-term care insurance
          • Mental health
          • Pension insurance
          • Riester pension
          • Social self-government
          • Social insurance
          • Accident insurance
          • The future of social security
        • Taxes & Finances
          • Dr. Oliver Perschau
            Dr. Linda Schollenberg

          • Public finances
          • Tax policy
          • Structural change
        • Economy & Society
          • Voluntary standardisation
          • ISWA
          • Names

          • Social justice
          • Social market economy
          • Business and corporate ethics
          • Walter Raymond Foundation
        • Securing skilled workers

          Securing skilled workers


          Click and learn more >>

          Social partnership

          Social partnership



          Click and learn more >>

          Future of social security

          Future of social security



          Click and learn more >>

          Covid 19 information for companies

          Covid 19 information for companies




          Click and learn more >>

  • Newsroom
    • News
    • Agenda
    • #Workkeepsusbusy
    • Social Media
    • Photos and videos
    • Publications
    • Press Contacts
  • The BDA
    • Organisation
      • Presidium
      • Board of Directors
      • Chief Executive
      • Departments
      • In the network
    • Mission
    • Vision
    • Values
  • Members
    • Our Members
      • State professional associations
      • Federal trade associations
    • Become a member
    • Become a partner
  • DE
  • EN
Arbeitgeberportal

ArbeitgeberPortal

Anmelden
Sie haben noch kein Konto?
Jetzt registrieren
Home > Newsroom > News > Aktuelles > Germany’s ability to innovate at risk: 209,000 skilled workers in STEM professions are lacking
 6. November 2024

Germany's ability to innovate at risk: 209,000 skilled workers in STEM professions are missing


The STEM disciplines and professions (mathematics, information technology, natural sciences and technology) are of central importance for the innovative capacity and growth of the German economy. They are therefore also crucial to the success of the transformation in the coming years. Despite the sharp economic slowdown, the labor shortage in the STEM sector remains at a high level of 209,200 in September 2024 and threatens to increase in the coming years. German companies are already losing ground in the global competition for innovation. Urgent measures are therefore needed to successfully meet the challenges.

Berlin, November 6, 2024: The sharp economic downturn in 2023 and 2024 is also reflected in the ratio of job vacancies to job seekers in STEM professions, albeit to a surprisingly small extent. There are still 209,200 STEM jobs that cannot be filled. At around 109,100 people, the STEM skilled worker occupations form the largest bottleneck group in September 2024, followed by around 77,700 people in the STEM expert occupations segment (academics) and around 22,300 in the specialist, master craftsman and technician occupations. A breakdown of the labor shortage by sector shows that the largest shortages are in the energy/electrical occupations with around 68,600, in the mechanical and automotive engineering occupations with around 41,500, in the construction occupations with around 30,800, in the metalworking occupations with around 30,300 and in the IT occupations with around 18,700 people.

M+E industry: the driving force of innovation in the German economy

Industries with a large proportion of employees with a STEM qualification have high innovation expenditure in Germany. This is particularly true of the M+E industry, in which 55 to 68% of the workforce has a STEM qualification. The German M+E industry invested around 74 billion euros in research and development in 2023. That is significantly more than half of Germany's overall economic innovation expenditure. Well-trained people with STEM qualifications are essential to ensure that these innovation activities can be further increased to meet the challenges of the future.

Various studies show that skills shortages are one of the most important obstacles to innovation projects. A recent survey by the IW also shows that for 44% of companies, skills shortages slow down digitalization in the company, 29% are hampered by skills shortages in climate protection and the energy transition, and 27% in dealing with geopolitical risks. STEM specialists are particularly important for the success of the transformation.

Competitiveness: Germany is falling behind in international comparison

Germany is burdened by high and rising costs for energy, wages, taxes and bureaucracy and is losing ground in the global competition for innovation. Overall, a high proportion of existing industrial value creation in Germany is at risk. There are still strengths in research, patents and STEM education. There are also new opportunities in climate protection technologies. In recent years, other countries have also increased their expenditure on research and development more strongly in relation to GDP - with the result that, according to evaluations of the IW patent database, Germany's share of international patent applications has also fallen sharply.

Outlook: Demographics and declining educational performance are a burden in the innovation competition

"Germany's innovative strength threatens to decline significantly in the coming years due to a shortage of STEM specialists," says Prof. Dr. Axel Plünnecke, head of the study and the Education, Innovation and Migration cluster at the Cologne Institute for Economic Research. The future supply of STEM specialists will be burdened by demographic developments and at the same time (according to the PISA study) by the declining STEM skills of the next generation entering the labor market. Other countries such as Japan or Korea have significantly better and more stable STEM skills or, like the USA, France, Denmark and Sweden, have a much more favorable demographic starting position.

Steps against the STEM skills shortage

The following measures should be taken by an alliance of politics, business, science and civil society in order to strengthen STEM education along the entire education chain and thus counteract the STEM skills gap:

◼ Raise the potential of women: More young women should be attracted to STEM through stereotype-free career and study guidance, female role models and mentoring programs.

◼ Activate the potential of older employees: The transformation requires an increasing amount of further training for STEM workers. Companies affected by digitalization are therefore investing more in the qualification of their employees. In this context, universities should expand their part-time study programs and offer more academic continuing education courses. Legislators should also improve the framework conditions for later retirement in order to keep STEM specialists in the workforce for longer.

◼ Unlock the potential of immigration: The potential of the new Skilled Immigration Act should be better leveraged through faster bureaucratic processes. Immigration via universities is also particularly attractive, as a high proportion of graduates come from demographically strong third countries and work in academic STEM professions.

◼ Improve opportunities in the education system: In order to increase STEM skills and improve educational opportunities, early childhood education should be strengthened, high-quality all-day programs should be expanded, language and reading promotion should be intensified and additional funds, differentiated via a social index, should be made available for the individual support of children and young people. The Startchancen program should be evaluated and successful models should be extended to other schools.

◼ Promote digital STEM education: Digital education should be strengthened in teacher training and further education and digital teaching opportunities should be further developed. Digital media education should be introduced as early as pre-school and computer science as a subject from primary school onwards. Digital literacy should be strengthened, particularly with regard to the effects of excessive private media consumption. Furthermore, measures should be developed along the entire education chain to strengthen STEM education and extracurricular activities should be strengthened. The motivation for mathematics lessons and the learning atmosphere must be improved.

◼ To ensure the quality of teaching in schools, the availability of well-trained teachers must be guaranteed. Multi-professional teams should be expanded to support teachers, for example to successfully promote digital concepts.

View the study: click here.

Here you can download the following documents on the STEM Autumn Report 2024 Labor market report / MINT-Meter / MINT Autumn Report barrier-free / Press release MINT Autumn Report

About the MINT Report

The MINT Report is produced twice a year by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research. The study is commissioned by the following members of the National MINT Forum: Confederation of German Employers' Associations, Employers' Federation Gesamtmetall and MINT Zukunft schaffen.


weitere News

6. May 2025
read more
 6. May 2025

Friedrich Merz must become chancellor of a new upswing

read more
5. May 2025
read more
 5. May 2025

The Federal Ministry of Labor must now see itself as a house for more work

read more

Stay up to date and subscribe to our newsletter.

Subscribe now
Publications
Contakt
Privacy policy
Imprint
  • 
  • 

© BDA 2025
Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände

Our commitment to equal opportunities and diversity in the workplace.

Arbeitgeberportal
EN
  • DE
  • EN

Ihre Ansprechpartnerin (oder Ihr Ansprechpartner):

Name Vorname
Bereich / Abteilung
Telefon: +49 30 2033-1800
E-Mail: v.name@arbeitgeber.de

Ihre Ansprechpartner:

Name Vorname
Bereich / Abteilung
Telefon: +49 30 2033-1800
E-Mail: v.name@arbeitgeber.de
Name Vorname
Bereich / Abteilung
Telefon: +49 30 2033-1800
E-Mail: v.name@arbeitgeber.de

ArbeitgeberPortal

Anmelden
Sie haben noch kein Konto?
Jetzt registrieren

Ihre Ansprechpartnerin:

Ursula Haschen
Teamassistenz | Walter-Raymond-Stiftung / Institut für Sozial- und Wirtschaftspolitische Ausbildung
Team Assistant | Walter Raymond Foundation / Institute of Societal and Social Policy Training

Telefon: +49 30 2033-1950
E-Mail: u.haschen@arbeitgeber.de