Germany: the government and social partners create a “Partnership for skilled workers”

Andrea Nahles the Minister for Employment invited the social partners to a meeting on November 20 where both agreed on setting up a “Partnership for skilled workers”, which is a process that will create working groups on themes such as training and activation of skilled German workers and the integration of outside skilled workers into Germany. In addition to foreign workers, the partnership looks to focus on women, the low-skilled and older workers. Contrary to earlier initiatives of the genre ‘green card’ or ‘blue card’, this partnership is not focused solely on the highly skilled and highly paid. Even though the Employment Agency has not as yet identified a general shortage of skilled labor, certain sectors are experiencing a lack of manpower and is coming at a difficult time in terms of forecasted demographics.