BDI Fact Check | Mittelstand & Family Businesses The German Mittelstand
Labor market
Labor market Is the SME sector suffering from an increasing shortage of qualified workers?
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The brains, hearts and hands of the workforce are some of the most important production factors in Germany, a country with a deficit in natural resources. Demographic developments enforce the bottleneck of skilled labor – especially among SMEs in rural regions. What is needed is targeted recruitment from abroad and more intensive training, including in digital skills.
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In an EU comparison (and also in comparison with large German companies), SMEs lack specialists in information and communications technology (ICT). Thus, there is a lack of expertise in an area that is highly relevant for a modern economy.
Companies with ICT specialists in an EU comparison Source: IfM Bonn (2019b)
SME (Germany)
17 %
SME (EU average)
19 %
Large companies (Germany)
77 %
Large companies (EU average)
75 %
0%
25 %
50 %
75 %
100 %
Here, "SME" refers to companies with up to 499 employees. In Germany, an average of 17% of SME companies report that they employ ICT specialists.
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