Outlook for 2022 – Personnel and Salary Development (4th Quarter 2021)
The special questions in the fourth quarter of 2021 revolved around personnel and wage trends in 2022, suitable measures to combat the shortage of skilled workers, and the most important task for the new German government from the perspective of the companies surveyed.
In just under half of the companies, the number of employees is expected to remain constant in the first half of 2022 according to the HR managers surveyed. In the remaining responses, an increase in headcount predominates (37 percent). Only very few of the companies surveyed are preparing to greatly increase their staff (3 percent). A reduction is expected by 12 percent of the participants, but there is no talk of a sharp decline.
How Can the Shortage of Skilled Workers Be Combated?
A good 80 percent of the HR managers surveyed stated that they will be looking for skilled workers in 2022 – this applies to all three economic sectors considered. Large companies with at least 250 employees are most likely to need skilled workers (90 percent). However, almost all of the companies surveyed that are looking for new skilled workers in 2022 face medium to very high problems. Compared to last year’s survey, the current data clearly shows that finding suitable skilled workers is becoming increasingly difficult for companies. The HR managers surveyed see increasing the attractiveness of vocational training (90 percent medium or high suitability) as the most suitable measure for combating the shortage of skilled workers. Another promising measure is advertising bottleneck occupations more strongly (over 80 percent good suitability). More skilled workers can also be recruited by further promoting work-life balance – 34 percent see a high and 44 percent a medium benefit in this. Solving the shortage of skilled workers by facilitating immigration, e.g., by reducing bureaucracy, is seen by one-third each as bringing a medium or high benefit. There is somewhat less support for expanding the support programs of the German Federal Employment Agency in order to tackle the shortage of skilled workers. Overall, more than half see a medium or high benefit in this. By contrast, a majority of the HR managers surveyed consider raising the retirement age to be either hardly or not at all effective in avoiding the shortage of skilled workers.
Strong Wage Increases Expected
In the employee group covered by the survey, wages will on the whole increase in 2022: 78 percent of respondents expect wages in their workforce to increase by an average of 4.7 percent overall; 21 percent expect wages to remain unchanged; falling wages were reported only very occasionally. Wage increases are expected to be highest in the service sector, averaging 5.8 percent. In contrast, manufacturing and trade companies expect wage increases averaging 3.9 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively, across the entire workforce. Whereas three-quarters of respondents in companies with fewer than 50 employees expect wages to grow in the workforce, the proportion is already nine out of ten respondents in larger companies with 250 or more employees and eight out of ten respondents in large enterprises with 500 or more employees. However, at 6 percent, the average expected wage increases at smaller companies are almost twice as high as at larger companies and large enterprises (3.3 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively).
Most Important Task for the New German Government from a Business Perspective
In December 2021, the traffic light coalition signed its coalition agreement entitled “Go for More Progress.” Companies want Germany’s new federal government to focus on the following five key tasks: reducing bureaucracy, combating pandemics, environmental protection and climate action, planning security for companies, and driving forward digitalization.
