More and more German companies are cutting jobs as part of austerity measures. The Hays Skilled Worker Index below shows in which areas companies are currently cutting costs and what is currently in particular demand.
Reports of job cuts at German companies are piling up. At the beginning of July, Volkswagen announced that it would not renew the contracts of thousands of employees. Bosch has already announced several times that it will cut thousands of jobs, and the Munich-based Siemens Energy group is also cutting staff. This is reflected in the skilled worker index of the recruiting company Hays: In the second quarter of this year, companies advertised significantly fewer positions than usual. Demand in most sectors fell sharply, with only one industry recording an increase.
Uncertain economic situation: demand for skilled workers is declining in all professions
The second quarter of this year shows a “significant drop in demand across all occupational groups,” suggests the London-based Hays Skilled Worker Index. “After skilled worker demand seemed unaffected by an uncertain economic situation in the last two quarters, economic stagnation is now a significant factor in recruitment,” says the Hays report. For the index, job advertisements from various sources, such as online job boards, are evaluated and compared in percentage terms to the baseline value for the first quarter of 2015.
There was a clear loser in the last quarter: In the area of human resources, demand fell by 20.9 percent compared to the previous year. Demand for specialists in the human resources (HR) sector in particular collapsed – with a drop of 92 percentage points. This is explained by the decline in the number of jobs and projects at companies.
“In contrast to the previous quarter, it is clear how much companies are holding back on their investments. Many are focusing on technological and organizational transformation with existing resources,” explains Alexander Heise, Managing Director of Hays Germany. This also explains the decline in demand in the construction industry, the service sector for companies and trade. The need for engineers is at its lowest level since the end of 2021, with demand falling by 14.2 percentage points, and project engineers in particular are in less demand here.
Human resources sector is declining the most: Overview of the decline in job advertisements
Other sectors that advertised fewer positions in the last quarter are the life sciences sector, with a decline of 14.9 percent compared to the previous year, including data scientists and quality management, and the IT sector, with a decrease of 11.1 percent. Overall, the number of job advertisements in all areas has fallen by 8.8 percent compared to the previous year. Only in the area of finance did demand increase, by two percentage points – accountants and controllers in particular are in high demand. An overview of all areas can be found here:
| Industry | Change in the number of job advertisements compared to the previous year |
|---|---|
| Staff | -20.9% |
| Life Science | -14.9% |
| Engineers | -14.2% |
| IT | -11.1% |
| Sales and Marketing | -3.8% |
| Legal | -3.5% |
| Finance | +2.0% |
More in demand than ever: Overview of the most sought-after professions
The most sought-after professions over the past nine years compared to the reference value of 2015 remain in the human resources sector with 175 percentage points. An overview by WirtschaftsWoche shows law in second place with 174 percent and finance in third place with 141 percent. Academics are not included in the ranking of the most sought-after professions for the first time since the survey began in 2008, according to the testing organization Dekra. Electronics specialists, service employees, as well as educators and child care workers, on the other hand, are more in demand than ever before.
