Germany: recruitment strategies increasingly rely on employee recommendations

Deutsche Bahn is preparing a general recruitment incentive program.  Deutsche Bahn is currently working on a new general recruitment incentive program favoring the recruitment of people recommended by its own employees.  Armed with good financial results in 2011, the company is growing and announced that it intended to recruit nearly 15,000 people within two years.  Currently, finding so many skilled workers on the German labor market (engineers, technologists, technicians…) is no easy task.  According to the Association of German Engineers (VDI), the average German engineer is 51 years old.  “50 percent of them are going to retire in the coming years” explained Willi Fuchs, VDI chairman.  Figures provided by the Federal Employment Agency and the VDI for this professional category don’t conduce to optimism.  In late December 2011, 18,300 engineers were without a job (60,000 in 2000) and there were 98,300 vacancies, i.e. a shortage of 80,000 engineers!  To remedy to this problem, Deutsche Bahn wants to introduce a company-wide bonus system replacing the incentive systems of some of its subsidiaries.  While the new system still needs to receive the “imprimatur” of the DB’s central WC, the outline has already been revealed.  Thus, any employee recommending an applicant with a college degree will receive a €2,000 bonus, €1,000 for technologists and €400 for apprentices.  This bonus will only be given for positions where the application process has started but which have not been filled.  Besides, recommended applicants cannot have been employed by Deutsche Bahn within two years before they apply.  Of course, the bonus will only be paid if the recruitment is a success, i.e. after the trial period, and will be taxable and gross, as anywhere.