BAD SAAROW (dpa-AFX) – Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) also sees positive effects on the labor market in view of the shortage of skilled workers in Germany as a result of the corona pandemic. The market has become more complete, Scholz said on Sunday at the East German Economic Forum (OWF) in Bad Saarow, Brandenburg. “After or during the pandemic, many employees reoriented themselves.” The chancellor was convinced that the minimum wage of 12 euros per hour that will come into effect in October will make a “considerable” contribution to the upswing in the east because it makes job prospects more attractive. He hopes for something from it.
Scholz campaigned in front of the East German business representatives for companies to train themselves. They would then have fewer problems with skilled workers and also keep more people in the company than others. He pointed out that the number of unskilled workers in companies who could still do vocational training was completely underestimated. There are funding programs for this.
According to him, refugees should also have better prospects of staying if they do an apprenticeship. The federal government wants to “regulate this a little more forcefully”.
“By the end of the decade we need to compensate for seven million skilled workers who are no longer available on the labor market,” he summarized. This can only be achieved by using the possibility of freedom of movement in the European Union and by international specialists who come to Germany. “And the current government will create the framework because it is not burdened with prejudices but with what is useful.”
A survey for the OWF showed that around 60 percent of the decision-makers in the eastern German federal states rated the potential of the eastern German business location positively. However, more than half of those questioned are skeptical about the success of structural change in the East within the next ten years./na/DP/mis