Job prospects for 2022: which companies are hiring employees

In the second year of the Corona crisis, the situation for workers turned positive, because companies want to create significantly more jobs in total than reduce them.

This is shown by an evaluation of the FAZ archive of personnel plans published in 2021.

The need for workers has risen so much in the past year that there is even talk of a shortage of staff and skilled workers.

That was exactly the opposite in the previous year.

Mark Fehr

Editor in business.

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In the year of the outbreak of the pandemic, German companies announced that they would cut a total of 95,000 jobs - almost twice as many as new jobs were to be created.

In 2021, on the other hand, companies only announced that they would cut jobs by half as many as in 2020 (see graphic).

In addition, almost 11,300 more new jobs are to be created than will be eliminated.

Battery specialists instead of diesel experts

The quarterly FAZ evaluation records programs in which at least 100 people are hired or downsized.

This focus on larger companies does not fully reflect the job market, but experience shows that it gives a fitting picture of the situation.

What is exacerbating the new labor shortage: Anyone who loses their job due to a downsizing program cannot simply hire another company that is currently creating jobs. Because this usually requires employees with completely different skills. The profiles of the total of 24,850 positions that will be eliminated at Commerzbank, Volkswagen, ThyssenKrupp, MAN and Siemens Energy only rarely match the requirements for around 27,000 new employees, according to which PWC, Amazon, BMW and Daimler just looking.

This is due to the fact that major labor market trends such as digitization, demographics, climate-neutral transformation and Corona have a similar effect on companies in an industry. All car manufacturers are competing for the same specialists, for example in electric drives and battery technology, while they are generally shedding jobs related to diesel drives or even internal combustion engines.

The auditing and consulting group PWC plans to employ around 10,000 employees by 2024. Commerzbank wants to cut just as many jobs by 2023. In both cases, behind this is digitization. While branches of the bank, which has been relegated from the Dax, are being replaced by Internet accounts and online depots, the auditing and consulting giant PWC is looking for specialists who are familiar with digital platform transactions or the defense against hacker attacks on companies beyond the traditional core tasks of auditors and tax consultants.

PWC needs these skills to digitize and protect its own business, but above all to advise clients on the upheavals and restructuring caused by digitization.

In view of these trends, the business consulting division of major auditors such as PWC and others is currently growing almost rapidly.

There is therefore no doubt that companies are in high demand for workers.

However, it is doubtful whether they will be able to fully implement their ambitious recruitment plans in view of the scarcity.

80 percent of the HR managers surveyed by the Ifo Institute said that they will be looking for skilled workers in 2022.

However, almost all companies stated that the search for suitable employees was becoming more and more difficult.

According to a survey by the Association of Family Businesses, the shortage of skilled workers has become the main concern for many companies - more urgent than supply bottlenecks and rising raw material prices. Employers therefore want to advertise more coveted occupational groups and become more attractive for employees by simplifying the reconciliation of work and private life and, for example, offering childcare for their employees. That sounds like a land of milk and honey for employees whose profile is particularly popular right now.

Part of the overall picture, however, is that companies' applications for short-time work doubled in December despite only a slight increase in unemployment.

This applies above all to industries threatened by closings and restrictions, i.e. gastronomy and retail.

But in factories too, the shortage of materials is likely to bring the conveyor belts to a standstill again and again, as it did last year.