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Skills anticipation in Germany (2022 Update)
Summary
Overview of the German approach
The German skills anticipation process is established and well-developed, with information and data disseminated and shared across a wide range of users. Many skills anticipation activities are undertaken, including, skills forecasts, skills assessments and studies, and employer and employee surveys. Research is both quantitative and qualitative. There are established – albeit not necessarily integrated – processes through which data and intelligence are disseminated, shared, and fed into policy.
A combination of government agencies, departments and research institutes is involved in producing forecasts and assessment data. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, BIBB) and the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarktund Berufsforschung, IAB) are the primary producers of data and intelligence at national and regional levels. They are legally mandated to provide labour market information and research on the German vocational education and training (VET) system. Other stakeholders and institutes, however, both commission and undertake their own research on skills supply and demand.
The system in place supports a range of stakeholders including workers, those seeking work, employers, VET providers and policymakers. The forecast data are used to project labour market prospects for jobseekers, and these projections can feed into systems and services to help jobseekers find employment. While data from a range of sources are seen to promote discussion among policymakers and VET providers, critics are concerned about the variety of methodologies and approaches that are used in analysing future supply and demand, skills shortages and skills needs. This is particularly an issue at regional and local levels. Overall, however, skills anticipation activity in Germany regularly produces a range of outputs and recommendations that feed into policy, ensuring that the relevant institutions can respond to the changing needs of the labour market.
Description
The German skills anticipation process can be described as established and well-developed, but not necessarily coordinated[i]. A range of skills anticipation activities is undertaken in Germany, including:
- Medium and/or short-term macro-level forecasts
- Sectoral studies and assessment (both quantitative and qualitative)
- Employer skills surveys
- Regional employment surveys
- Econometric prognoses of employment by sector, occupation, and qualification
- Foresight exercises
- Qualitative research into sectors/branches, occupations, qualification standards, etc.
Data are widely disseminated and used to inform policy and practice in Germany. The process is considered well-developed as it is based on sharing common frameworks, research activities and experiences through the networking of key stakeholders, facilitated by FreQueNz – a network of stakeholders that is currently not actively managed. Agencies involved in the collection and dissemination of sources of data include:
- The Federal Statistical Agency (data on population, income, labour markets, etc.), of which the main source is the ‘Mikrozensus’, which also forms the basis of the German contribution to the EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS)
- The Department of Statistics of the Federal Agency of Labour (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA) (employment statistics, activity statistics, locally validated indicators for sectoral development).
One method of measuring future skill shortages frequently used by the BIBB is a forecasting macro model on supply and demand, where an occupational and qualification matrix is used. The data are disaggregated at a national level for 50 occupational fields, 63 sectors, five qualification levels and four requirement levels (unskilled and semi-skilled activities, specialist activities, complex specialist activities and highly complex activities). There are, however, other long-term forecasting instruments.
Forecasts are produced on behalf of national and regional German ministries/governments as well as municipal bodies. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) are the primary producers of data on skills for the Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF). Additional forecasts are commissioned by, for instance, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS). These types of forecast are used by stakeholders to broaden their understanding of skills supply and demand, as well as for strategic planning. A range of other stakeholders also commissions forecast work, particularly analysis with a sectoral focus.
Aims
The aim of the skills anticipation process is to project labour market prospects for jobseekers. These feed into systems and services to support jobseekers in finding a job and employers in tackling potential recruitment problems.
Skills adaptation policies and programmes are mostly aimed at promoting cooperation between public bodies and universities at the national, regional, and local levels. This is supported by the framework of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (Kultusministerkonferenz, KMK), which is used for interregional cooperation in primary and tertiary education.
Educational and career guidance services in Germany also draw on intelligence from the skills anticipation systems. Career guidance services are available to all whether in school, vocational, general, higher or continuous education, as well as to all employed and unemployed individuals. They are based on the distinction between educational guidance (Bildungsberatung) in the educational sector and vocational guidance (Berufsberatung) in the vocational training and employment sector.
Legal framework
There is no established mechanism that systematically regulates the dissemination of skills intelligence information in Germany. A number of regularly produced publications, such as the Berufsbildungsbericht (Report on VET) and Bildungsbericht (Education Report), use information produced from skills forecasts. As many aspects of education are mandated to the Länder (federal state) level, various policy developments and requests for information are at this level. In addition, national ministries respond to labour market indicators and initiate further work or research on skills.
Governance
The current skills anticipation process in Germany was initiated in 1999 with a resolution passed by the Alliance for Jobs, Training and Competitiveness (Bündnis für Arbeit, Ausbildung und Wettbewerbsfähigkeit) which identified the need for labour market indicators. This resulted in an initiative to encourage the early identification of skills needs launched by theBMBF. Key actors and projects that are part of skills anticipation activities are brought together by a network known as FreQueNz, the ‘Early Identification of Skills Needs Network’. The FreQueNz network includes several research institutions, higher education institutions, the BIBB, the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) and the German Employers’ Organisation for Vocational Training (KWB).
The role of stakeholders
In Germany, it is the responsibility of interested stakeholders or end users to access and interpret information on skills demand and skills supply. This requires a sound knowledge of the German labour market and research methodology. The research institutes, the Bundestag or the parliaments of the Länder often manage the information on skills demand and skills supply and play a role in interpreting the data.
There is considered to be a good collaboration between different stakeholders, but as their interests are not the same, they may prefer different sources of labour market indicators. Thus, the system is to some extent characterised by a large amount of stakeholder involvement in skills anticipation – including national, regional, and local governments, employer organisations, trade unions, chambers, and sectoral bodies – but at the same time, there appears to be relatively little coordination of anticipation activities.
This is not to say that coordination does not take place at all. The Tertiary Education Pact 2020 (Hochschulpakt 2020), for example, brought together the BMBF and the Länder governments to tackle the increasing demand for people with tertiary-level education and promote MINT courses at universities. Furthermore, other regional programmes bring together stakeholders, social partners, and industry.
Data from the skills anticipation process are disseminated and shared, facilitated in part by FreQueNz network established in 1999 by the BMBF and comprised of 12 institutes, universities, state institutions, businesses, social partners, and others. Projects focus on the early identification of new skills and an assessment of their significance for vocational training, specific sectors, enterprises, and target groups. Work is qualitative in nature and contributes to the development of vocational training in Germany.
The BIBB Board focuses on skills supply, skills demand and skills mismatches in the vocational training system. It draws evidence from a range of forecasting, foresight and assessment sources. The main source of data is, however, government-funded research by the BIBB and IAB. Disseminated information from the Board is freely available. The Board comprises representatives of employers, employees, the Länder and the federal government.
Sectoral bodies or institutions have been established and are run by a number of social partners in the country. These sectoral bodies ensure that training in their sector meets the needs of employers, workers, and the economy as a whole. There are several employer associations, chambers of commerce, unions, etc., that commission or develop partial skills anticipation analysis.
Target groups
The intended target groups are sectoral stakeholder associations, employees’ and employers’ associations, other research institutes and economic and political decision-makers. Additionally, the public employment service and both public and private careers guidance organisations are users of skills anticipation outputs.
Funding and resources
It is difficult to assess the cost of skills anticipation in Germany because activities are diverse and spread across several organisations. There is no structural budget dedicated to skills anticipation. The BIBB/IAB model is financed partly by the institutional budget, which comes indirectly from the BMBF and the BMAS, while other activity is funded through specific projects.
Methods and tools
There are various tools used in skills anticipation in Germany, and analysis is undertaken by a range of stakeholders.
Skills assessment
The Federal Employment Agency (PES) has a dedicated department, the Department Media Management Education and Career (AM52), that is responsible for skills intelligence. The PES uses short-term assessments to manage future labour supply, which are produced by the IAB. Examples include the short-term skill analysis based primarily on time needed to fill a vacancy (Engpassanalyse) or the skilled workers radar (Fachkräfteradar). In addition, the BIBB – in cooperation with the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) – conducts regular surveys of employees to assess short-term skills needs. They are undertaken to determine data on the demand side in terms of skills needs and utilisation at a national level. These surveys cover 20,000 employers and provide information on current skills gaps, recruitment difficulties and training needs for VET provision.
There are a number of publications that provide data on future skills needs and demands, including the Datenreport zum Berufsbildungsbericht (Report on VET) that is published annually by the BIBB, and the Bildungsbericht (Education Report) published by the KMK and the BMBF. These reports are publicly available.
Skills forecasts
At a national level, there are several forecasting instruments that focus on future skills demand and supply:
- Qualification and Occupational Fields Projections (Qualifikations und Berufsfeldprojektionen, QuBe): Labour supply is forecast by qualification and occupation, and labour demand by sector, occupation and requirement level. The results are also differentiated into six regions. The IAB and the BIBB, with the collaboration of the Institute of Economic Structures Research (GWS) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT), are responsible for these forecasts.
- The BMAS also commissions long-term forecasts (Arbeitsmarkt 2030). The Federal Employment Agency or the KMK commissions and uses intelligence reports. The short-term skill analysis (Engpassanalyse) of the Federal Employment Agency is used for immigration planning. Forecasts of upcoming school pupils and university entrants are carried out by the KMK and are used for educational planning.
The BMBF and BIBB maintain an econometric model to forecast the supply and demand for apprenticeship places each year. This is complemented with national monitoring schemes tracking graduates from specific educational institutions, data from which feed into the skills anticipation system. - The Deutschland Report presents labour market forecasts to 2025, 2035 and 2045, factoring in projected demographic change and general economic indicators.
In addition to the above there are also regional forecasts. These are initiated and commissioned by the Länder governments or Industry and Trade Chambers, and often use a methodology different to those used in the national forecasts. Accordingly, their results are not necessarily consistent with the regional estimates derived from national forecasts or the regional forecasts carried out by the IAB.
At a local level, forecasts are sometimes derived from national forecasts without taking full account of local factors or without including (qualitative or quantitative) feedback from local stakeholders. Prognos AG (under the name Zukunftsatlas Regionen, i.e. ‘future atlas of the regions’) produces short-term regional and local forecasts. Some municipalities commission their own forecasts. Additionally, there are regional and local forecasting projects co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). These include a project in Berlin-Brandenburg (Gemeinsame Fachkräftestudie Berlin-Brandenburg), a project on qualification demands in Bremen (Ermittlung des Qualifikationsbedarfs in der Region Bremen, EQUIB) and a qualification demand early warning system in Hesse (the Regio Pro project).
Occupational forecasting of the demand for skilled workers and monitoring of skilled worker shortages are undertaken by IW Köln, the Cologne Institute for Economic Research. At a regional level, these tasks are carried out by the German Industry and Trade Chambers.
Skills foresight
Skills foresight work is undertaken by the BMBF and BIBB. The BMBF has conducted the Foresight Initiative for Skills Needs (Initiative zur Früherkennung von Qualifizierungserfordernissen). Foresight exercises comprise scenario building, in which different future scenarios are contrasted with baseline projections.
The Federal Employment Agency’s foresight approach concerns interviews and surveys with stakeholders, as well as expert focus groups/meetings[ii].
Other skills anticipation practices
As noted above, there are several surveys of employers and employees undertaken that provide information about the demand for skills. In addition to these there is a range of other relevant skills anticipation activities. The Alliance for Training and Further Training (Allianz für Aus- und Weiterbildung) is engaged in trying to increase the provision of apprenticeship places by employers and matching the supply of VET to demand. It comprises employers’ organisations, employees’ organisations, Länder representatives and the federal government, and focuses on trying to identify, and thus anticipate, potential skill shortages.
There are also a number of sectoral programmes aimed at increasing labour supply in occupations in which there are particular shortages of skilled workers. One such example is Komm mach MINT, which promotes the participation of women in MINT occupations (i.e. jobs related to mathematics, information technology, natural sciences and technology).
Other activities that feed into skills anticipation include: job advertisement analysis; surveys of advertisers; surveys of guidance staff; surveys of workers; and surveys of continuing education providers. The aims of these activities are to verify demand for skilled workers, identify qualifications for which there is a high demand, inform skills and course development, and monitor trends in continuing VET provision. They are considered to be early identification activities. For instance, the continuing training monitor platform (wbmonitor), run by BIBB and the German Institute for Adult Education (DIE), offers the largest annual survey of CVET providers in Germany. The survey allows to monitor developments in the labour market and identify respective training needs.
Additionally, future skill needs are analysed by the Federal Employment Agency (PES). In the PES, individual career guidance is informed by labour market and VET relevant outputs from BIBB, IAB, and other institutions, as well as by regional data from chambers, associations, and network partners[iii]
Technological changes, environmental issues and demographic changes, increasing inequalities in terms of vulnerable groups, migration, global supply chains and other globalisation issues and changes in the world of work, such as new forms of work and learning are taken into consideration by the PES for qualitative analysis, development of scenarios and revisiting/better understanding of forecast models. Big data has also been used as a skills intelligence source in pilot projects [through analysis of textual data with the use of natural language processing (NLP) tools and machine learning (ML) algorithms to extract and elaborate information][iv].
Dissemination and use
Use of skills anticipation in policy
One activity that warrants special mention is the Labour Market Monitor (Regionales Arbeitsmarktmonitor). Regional monitors are run by the regional offices of the Federal Employment Agency at federal state level and are supported by the public administration and social partners. The role of the monitor is to anticipate risks of unemployment and skilled labour shortages, as well as to improve regional labour market initiatives and networking. The monitor holds administrative data on qualifications and training levels, and employment and unemployment rates. The monitor identifies skills shortages at the regional level and allows comparisons across regions, which helps inform the development of strategies to address the shortages.
The Federal Employment Agency/PES makes available its skills intelligence outputs both internally to its experts and externally in the form of executive summaries, reports (on general findings or dedicated to focused topics), and handbooks/guidelines/toolkits. It also allows the open access and use of its datasets. Career guidance counsellors are being trained and informed based on skills anticipation outputs[v].
Target groups’ uses of skills anticipation outputs
Skills anticipation outputs are used by career and vocational guidance services, which are predominately provided by the Federal Employment Agency. Short-term indicators rather than long-term skills forecasts are used, because there are concerns that vocational guidance based on long-term trends may result in over-supply.
Research on occupations undertaken by the BIBB is used for work-based training programmes and planning by the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA).
The advisory boards in the Leibniz Institutes (independent research organisations) also disseminate skills intelligence reports to a range of stakeholders.
Career and vocational guidance is available through the Federal Employment Agency/PES using the short-term indicators for skills and occupations. The PES runs local Vocational Information Centres (Berufsinformationszentren, BiZ). These centres provide career and vocational guidance on dual and tertiary training, career choices, retraining and further training. The PES also runs an online career and further training guidance system known as Career and further education - your career path (Berufsentwicklungsnavigator, BEN), which uses the occupation development indicator (Berufsentwicklungsindikator). For those in school, guidance is the responsibility of the Länder and municipal bodies, which draw on data and intelligence from a range of sources[vi]
The PES uses skills anticipation findings to develop IT procedures for skills matching/self-exploration tools, occupational orientation and career guidance; and adjust ALMPs and other lifelong learning opportunities, such as upskilling and reskilling programmes addressing future skills requirements. The Agency uses an array of different tools and methos to inform its provision of career guidance and other tasks: descriptive statistics from a IAB job survey, information on digitisation and changes in employment (DiWaBe); quantitative forecasting in form of Qualification and Occupation in the Future (QUBE); graduate tracer studies data from the National Education Panel (NEPS); a database for vocational training and job descriptions that allows for qualitative research (including qualitative forecasting); and big data obtained through job-data research ‘Kompetenzkompass’(which has been completed)[vii].
The PES also analyses job advertisements in the Bundesagentur vacancy portal (‘BA-Jobbörse’) and other search portals, company websites, daily newspapers, weekly newspapers, etc., to allow for the editorial updating of competence and qualification requirements in regulated occupations[viii].
Please cite this document as:Skills Panorama (2017), Cedefop.(2022). . Skills anticipation in Germany. Skills intelligence: data insights. URL [accessed DATE] |
Bibliography
- Allianz für Aus- und Weiterbildung
- Andersen, T., Feiler, L. and Schulz, G. (2015). The Role of Employment Service Providers. Guide to Anticipating and Matching Skills and Jobs (volume 4). Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
- BIBB. Wbmonitor – Die Weiterbildungslandschaft aus Anbietersicht
- Cedefop. (2019). Developments in vocational education and training policy in 2015-19: Germany. Cedefop monitoring and analysis of VET policies.
- CEDEFOP/OECD/ETF/ILO. (2014). Survey on Anticipating and Responding to Changing Skill Needs.
- Colebrook, C., Cory, G., Dolphin, T., Doyle, P., Fox Carney, D., Hatfield, I., McNeil, C., Pontin, G. and Stirling, A. (2015). European Jobs and Skills. A Comprehensive Review. London: Institute for Public Policy Research.
- Cologne Institute for Economic Research
- Economix Research and Consulting. (2014). Arbeitsmarkt 2030: Die Bedeutung der Zuwanderung für Beschäftigung und Wachstum. Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs/Bertelsmann.
- EEPO. (2015). Country Fiches on Skills Governance in the Member States – Germany. Developed by the European Employment Policy Observatory for the European Commission. Brussels: European Commission.
- European Commission. (2022). Future skills, career guidance and lifelong learning in PES. Thematic paper. Brussels. Author: Lukasz Sienkiewicz.
- European Commission/CEDEFOP/ICF International/. (2014). European Inventory on Validation of Non-Formal and Informal Learning 2014: Country Report Germany. Brussels: European Commission
- Federal Agency of Labour. ‘Einfach auf den Punkt: Arbeitsmarktmonitor.’
- __ ‘Karriere und Weiterbildung – Ihr Karrierepfad.’
- Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training
- __ ‘Das Projekt QuBe – Qualifikation und Beruf in der Zukunft.’
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Berufsbildungsbericht.
- Hawley-Woodall, J., Duell, N., Scott, D., Finlay-Walker, L., Arora, L. and Carta, E. (2015). Skills Governance in the EU Member States. Synthesis Report for the EEPO. Brussels: European Commission
- Hippach-Schneider, U.; Huismann, A. (2019). Vocational education and training in Europe: Germany. Cedefop ReferNet VET in Europe reports 2018. https://cumulus.cedefop.europa.eu/files/vetelib/2019/Vocational_Education_Training_Europe_Germany_2018_Cedefop_ReferNet.pdf
- Hochschulpakt 2020
- Komm mach MINT
- Kultusministerkonferenz
- Kultusministerkonferenz/Ministry for Education and Research. Bildung in Deutschland .
- ILO. (2015). Anticipating and Matching Skills and Jobs. Guidance note. Geneva: International Labour Organization
- Institute for Employment Research
- OECD. (2016). Getting Skills Right. Assessing and Anticipating Changing Skill Needs. Paris: OECD Publishing
- Prognos
- Stifterverband. Hochschulbildung in der Transformation. Hochschul-Bildungs-Report 2022, Abschlussbericht
- __ Hochschulbildung für die Arbeitswelt 4.0 - Hochschul-Bildungs-Report 2020: Jahresbericht 2016.
Endnotes
[i]While Germany has a system that produces a large amount of labour market indicators (LMI), not all of them are coordinated across ministries, stakeholders and users of the information. It is more accurate to say that any coordination relies on the producers of the LMI including data produced by other LMI providers and skills forecasts.
[ii]European Commission. (2022).
[iii]Ibid.
[iv]Ibid.
[v]Ibid.
[vi]Ibid.
[vii]Ibid.
[viii]Ibid.
Data insights details
Table of contents
Page 1
SummaryPage 2
DescriptionPage 3
Methods and toolsPage 4
Dissemination and usePage 5
BibliographyPage 6
Endnotes