Robert Habeck was “fascinated” at the end of May by the Hanover Fair. The Ecologist Minister for the Economy and the Climate discovered at the world’s largest exhibition devoted to technologies and industrial innovation all the technical solutions that will enable Germany to succeed in its energy transition. “I got here the answers to the great problems of our time,” he said. But the most popular minister in Olaf Scholz’s government also knows that the challenge of the renewable energy sector, which already employs a million people, is not related to technical or financial issues. “We have all the necessary money. The private investors are ready!” said Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the foreign press at the start of June.
The challenge will be to find enough arms and brains to implement the most ambitious economic project since reunification. Because the labor shortage is worsening at high speed: from 5 to 8 million positions, according to various studies, will be vacant by 2030 on the labor market. There is already a lack of 150,000 engineers, a record level, but also 40,000 computer scientists, essential professions to ensure the operation and safety of these future “critical infrastructures”, such as wind farms or hydrogen power plants.
The government contract provides that in 2030, more than 80% of electricity will come from renewable energies, almost double today. “But we will not be able to achieve these objectives with such a shortage of manpower”, estimated at the Hanover Fair Dieter Westerkamp, director of the “Technology and Society” department at the Federation of German Engineers. Indeed, the pace of investment must, according to the minister, be “multiplied by three”: wind farms, solar panels, hydrogen power plants or heat pumps… “We are currently only able to isolate 1% buildings per year. At this rate, it will take us a century”, worries Dieter Westerkamp.
No arms in the building
The construction industry remains the key sector of the transition because buildings alone consume half of the energy in Germany. “The government also wants to build 400,000 homes a year. Who is going to do all that?” Asks Dieter Westerkamp. “You currently have to wait an average of seven months to have solar panels installed on your roof. It’s not a question of a shortage of materials but of manpower”, confirms Carsten Burckhardt, member of the union’s management board. IG Bau (BTP). “Companies are increasing overtime. As a result, working conditions are deteriorating and specialized workers are looking for better paid jobs elsewhere, especially in the metallurgy. Competition in the labor market has only just begun!”, adds -he.
Not to mention the administration, which is also looking for staff (200,000 vacancies). Local communities are essential cogs in the transition. However, there is a shortage of qualified personnel just to respond to grant applications. “We must also simplify the procedures so that the authorization to mount a wind turbine no longer lasts seven years but six months”, insists Harald Bradke, director of the energy technologies department of the Fraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe.
“We will have to push back the retirement age, encourage the work of women but also attract more migrants,” adds the expert. The arrival of more than one million refugees between 2015 and 2016 was a first breath of fresh air for businesses. “But integrating and training refugees takes a long time,” recalls Mathias Mayer, migration policy expert at the Bertelsmann Foundation think tank. “Also, Germany took in these refugees for humanitarian reasons, not to address labor shortages.” As for the Ukrainians, they are already returning home to rebuild their country.
According to the president of the federal employment agency, Detlef Scheele, Germany needs 400,000 immigrants a year just to maintain the labor supply. Immigration law (Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz) which came into force two years ago was made to recruit even further afield, in third countries, i.e. outside the European Union. The text abolished the “national preference” in hiring and facilitated the issuance of visas. “But it would be necessary to debureaucratize the procedures in addition to increase the number of arrivals”, insists Dieter Westerkamp. The law currently allows only 30,000 engineers and skilled workers to be attracted each year.