How German companies court employees

HOYERSWERDA, BAUTZEN, Kamenz and Radeberg are cities in the eastern German state of Saxony that lost tens of thousands of inhabitants, especially the young and the educated, after the collapse of communism. Once a coal-mining hub, Hoyerswerda has seen its population shrink from 70,000 inhabitants in 1985 to 32,000; the average burgher is 53 years old. In all four cities baby boomers are retiring or preparing to. Worried about staff shortages, in 2019 the quartet’s city halls and two dozen local employers launched the “late shift” programme. It involves busing local teenagers around factories, workshops and offices in the afternoons to encourage them to sign up for an apprenticeship.Worker shortages are a huge problem in Germany. The country’s workforce may peak soon in absolute terms and could shrink by up to 5m by 2030. Covid-19 has made the problem worse. Early in the pandemic, lockdowns and a recession meant that lots of German companies had too many workers, plenty of whom ended up in state-supported furlough schemes. As the economy has reopened, they find themselves with too few.