Print version Recommend this page Press release
42/ 2012
Bonn, 06.12.2012
Nursing staff: Where to recruit - or poach - from next?
BIBB analysis on skilled worker shortage in nursing care
Despite longer working hours and the loyalty of skilled nursing staff to their occupations, it will take until the year 2025 to alleviate Germany's already appreciable skilled worker shortage in the nursing occupations. Even the activation of those in possession of appropriate qualifications but not working in the nursing sector - necessary as this is - cannot make up the shortfall. An analysis by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) shows that only a combination of different approaches can help: it will be vital both to motivate young people to undertake initial vocational training in nursing professions and to improve official recruitment and recognition procedures for qualified skilled workers from abroad.
Among Germany's population of migrant workers, there is a slightly higher proportion of qualified nursing staff (4.1%) than in the German-trained workforce (3.8%). Around 6% of qualified nursing staff acquired their qualifications in other countries. The German labour market is therefore benefiting from skilled migration in the nursing occupations even if the total number of migrant nursing staff with an occupational qualification, at around 70,000 individuals, is relatively low.
According to the BIBB study, Germany still has a "skills reserve": around 178,000 residents of Germany between the ages of 15 and 59 have completed at least one year of initial vocational training in the nursing occupations but are not currently in employment. A share of these people need to be motivated to join the workforce. For example, one way of adjusting the supply of skilled workers to meet the growing demand might be the nationwide provision of childcare facilities, since the proportion of female nursing staff is around 84% according to the Federal Statistical Office.
In addition it will be necessary to attract young people into initial vocational education and training in the nursing occupations, and to manage existing shortages by attracting migrants with the specific qualifications needed. Regulated recruitment and recognition procedures could increase the chances of qualified nursing staff finding their way to Germany.
Meanwhile, the EU Commission's proposal to demand certification of twelve years of school-based education as an entry requirement for nursing training has been described as a "wrong move" by the President of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), Friedrich Hubert Esser. "This would make the skilled worker shortage in the health sector even more acute", according to Esser. Instead, he says, it is necessary to strengthen dual-system initial vocational training and develop occupational career models that match workplace requirements and effectively counteract the academicisation of occupations. "Scope can be found for the planned revision of curricula by elaborating qualification requirements in the health occupations within a framework of new career-progression models, in which initial and advanced vocational education are systematically interlinked, and achievement of the second upgrading training level enables transition onto relevant degree programmes."
Further information in the latest edition of the BIBB journal "Vocational Training in Research and Practice" (BWP), issue 6/2012, in the article "Woher nehmen, wenn nicht stehlen? Qualifikationsreserven für die Pflege". Available for downloading at www.bibb.de/bwp-6977.
Images are available at www.bibb.de/pressefotos.
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