BMW, Porsche look abroad for engineers

Engineering association calculates German automotive industry faces a personnel shortage of 77,000 skilled staff

Financial news outlet Bloomberg has reported that the German automotive industry is chronically short of qualified engineers to develop the next generation of passenger cars.

As in Australia, Germany's workforce is aging, with fewer young people to counter the attrition as qualified engineers leave the workforce. The situation is exacerbated by lifestyle choices of the young, preferring not to take up engineering studies.

Information compiled by the German engineering association, the VDI, suggests that BMW will struggle to find the 800 new staff it needs for its factory at Leipzig, where the i3 city car and the i8 hybrid sports car will be built. This is a €400-million project in jeopardy if the company cannot secure enough staff to support it.

Nearby, Porsche is adding to BMW's headaches by headhunting 1000 workers for the plant where the Cajun compact SUV will be built. The company has plans to expand its workforce by a further 2000 staff over the next three years. According to the article — published in industry journal Automotive News Europe — electric vehicle development is most at risk from the staff shortages and the problem may spread to Volkswagen and Daimler as well.

BMW has established an education centre that trains 150 workers a month in electric mobility. On a broader scale, BMW is running bachelor degree programs at colleges in Ingolstadt and Deggendorf and has joined forces with the Technical University in Munich and Clemson University in South Carolina.

The German manufacturers are planning to turn their sights towards China and India to supplement their current engineering staff. While the unemployment figure for Germany (seven per cent) is higher than in Australia, it masks the scarcity of qualified engineers available for immediate recruitment in the country. This has, according to Automotive News, driven the government to ease restrictions on foreign workers employed in Germany.

In the circumstances, engineers are seeing their wages rise in accordance with the demand for their services. Wages have risen by 7.6 per cent since 2005.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site...