Need a job? Germany needs Craftsmen, Urgent!

Craftsmanship has golden soil. This phrase was even more true during the last 10 years during the construction boom in Germany.

Here they are known and proud of the quality of its craftsmen. Craftsmen in Germany, especially self-employed ones, not only have their craft in mind, but due to the specifications and requirements in many trades, they also have to know their way around bureaucracy very well.

Many entrepreneurs from the baby boomers will retire in the next few years and are desperately looking for a successor to take over their usually well-run and successful company.

Craftsmen find it difficult to find a successor – at least 125,000 family businesses in the skilled trades alone will be looking for a business successor in the next five years!

But personnel is in short supply, complain the skilled trades and the DIHK. The skilled trades see increasing problems with business succession.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to find business successors or master craftsmen and women who want to become self-employed or start a business,”

said Jörg Dittrich, president of the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts.

The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) reported less interest in starting a business.

“Many young people are apparently less and less aware of the opportunities of starting their own business, but feel downright deterred by obstacles, red tape and stumbling blocks,”

said DIHK President Peter Adrian.

Bureaucracy is a deterrent
Referring to the problems, Dittrich said:

“This has a lot to do with the image of self-employment and entrepreneurship that is conveyed. And it has to do with the excessive bureaucracy that deters many from taking the step into self-employment. 

It creates the worry of getting caught in a bureaucratic bind, of not being able to comply with the plethora of regulations and thus being exposed to great personal risks.”