Germany is currently facing a shortage of around 137,000 IT professionals, according to a recent study by Bitkom e.V., the industry association for the information and telecommunications sector. Despite the challenging economic situation caused by Covid-19, startups and established companies across all industries are still searching for more IT experts than ever before. The shortage of IT professionals is becoming a major obstacle to digital transformation, and the problem is expected to worsen in the coming years due to demographic changes.
One possible solution to this problem is to hire IT experts from Russia and Belarus. However, due to bureaucratic hurdles, companies find it difficult to employ them. Only a small fraction of the surveyed companies (1%) currently employ IT experts from these countries, but they have the potential to fill 59,000 positions. To address the shortage of IT professionals, companies are using various methods to attract new employees, such as job postings, career fairs, and headhunting. They are also making the application process as simple as possible by using online tools and digital signatures.
In the coming years, the shortage of IT professionals in Germany is expected to increase, as evidenced by the declining number of students studying computer science. To permanently eliminate the shortage of IT professionals, most companies (90%) expect the government to streamline the immigration process for foreign experts. They also want more legal certainty when hiring IT specialists from abroad and improvements in the legal framework for remote work from abroad. German startups, in particular, face location disadvantages in the international competition for the best IT professionals. They are looking for new ways to financially incentivize employees and improve the legal framework for remote work.
