No People, why cry? (NPWC)

Being invited, I followed the interesting sounds expressed in a personal written invitation of an organism in F-Strasbourg, and visited therefore the IT and Business trade show held this month in the capital of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Stuttgart City, on its local medium sized airport, there. Thus, reporting about the following news in Strasbourg and here for you in this article, I should admit that I am still impressed and attracted by the hidden company’s news and the words of its CEO.

“The mint company will grow faster due to the fact of more than 63.000 jobs published in our database, created only for the German industry”, the new CEO whispered. It offers more than a thread to the European states and worldwide, which is appreciated in Strasbourg City not as a good story. So, regarding the economical facts of an ongoing immigration towards richer nations or overseas, this is unpopular news.

There seem to be not enough people on the markets that cause lots of cries! The job stories continue to hit also other states in Central Europe and also in other parts of the world. The fact that nobody can’t be found, this news stands for no deletion of offered jobs in the relevant data bases.

However, the right people can quit their jobs earlier in order to get better paid offers, which participate fully to their next steps of IT careers. As a result, the balance of required talents remains even worse. IT teachers, which are normally hired by the states, shall be hired by the IT industries, with eventually double salaries or more. This is one result due to the high demand for IT experts in Stuttgart. If these specialized teachers would be ready to move to Switzerland, there would be other categories necessary to earn their living there.

Thus, it is not a surprise that only a few of the French companies wanted to know more about some of the background information behind this unbelievable story: recruiters there fear more immigration towards richer countries with higher IT standards, being located opposite to Alsace in Eastern France or by using the Euro-Channel in Calais-Dover.

Pessimistic Outlook for the MINT industries

How to overcome a still increasing bottleneck of missing talent urgently needed in the IT industries? The short-term forecast of a possible increase for the very near future excels a higher demand for skilled IT workers: 8 per cent was announced on the IT convention in Stuttgart. And the normal increase might be lower than 3 per cent in that period of time of approximately 5 years, especially with the actually increasing immigration trends.

How come that recruiting in this sector seems to be so tough?

Is it another reaction describing by the German wordings of ‘the voices echoed from the woods’? One of the easy understandable answers might be the skills shortage in language learning. It seems to be due to the more difficult grammar of the German language, I hear teachers shout.

Therefore, the multi-cultural experienced engineers – ladies first – are always welcome. And the good news is: Solutions were recently found in Sweden by researchers of the Stockholm University in field research on trade shows and in schools and on Campus: 40+ percent better result.

Male and female IT engineers, focusing on better living conditions, their strong desire should be the wish to master the basic challenges here: managing to create highly skilled academic-potentials and continue working in high loyalty within the IT industries: their long-term aim! However, and this it is surprising, candidates arriving here with bachelor and master diplomas, do actively show ‘normal weakness’ such as not having eventually invested enough time in studying abroad: why did they miss Erasmus programs or similar programs overseas?

As a result, unable to speak fluently in at least 2 of 3 world languages – Arab, English, or Spanish – or many more besides the German language, the lack of communication skills and special language knowledge are the main handicap to enter new markets and countries, the team leader of that Swedish research project published on the 2015 IT convention.

Prejudices to learn some of those seldom spoken languages – the German language is not that complicated: Grammar in Poland or writing words in Mandarin are more difficult due to a high percentage of English vocabulary, which was installed smoothly after WW2 here.

This news does not help Germans companies to recruit enough people for the moment and the slogan “no people, no cries”, let me ask a question publicly…: Is German too difficult, maybe worse than learning Chinese and what is the percentage of students learning German now, outside in its’ neighbouring universities in France, England, or Poland?

Regarding German companies in Shanghai – already 210.000 Germans have been immigrating to China – living there for years, try to recruit from European sources the bachelor or master students from Asia Pacific, willing to come home and to support their own country.

The negative effects of getting uprooted in their European studies, the roots in mainland China will be cut instantly. Thus, not only frustrated a bit about the lost chances to get one of the good paid jobs in Europe when the Visa are not extended, this results let them hope to get upgraded in mainland China. The reality is so different.

You can see it in the streets of the metropolitan City of Shanghai on job fairs held in the German Centre or on special events for millions of local students. The Chinese students are regarded as foreigners (guiqiao), when they had been living at least 6 to 8 years abroad.

Their attitudes do not match to the local students who try to get just assistant jobs of young professional. The ‘Gui Qiao’ (pinyin: Foreign Chinese coming home) are regarded as to expensive (similar sound of ‘gui’), and to some extent as aliens due to the different cultural background experiences.

Actually their real problems are the following: actively they do not match the needs of German companies in Asia, as a matter of fact of avoiding communicating within German networks outside China and then in China not in new German-Chinese networks, too. They seem not to be skilled enough to speak fluently in British and/or American English so that their applications are not successful.

Some details are described from my own experiences seen in the German Center, regarding the achieved German language levels, they avoid basic grammar problems such as “der / die / das Fachkra(e)ft(e)-… combined with a second word like the potential (German: the potential expert). It seems to the salient thinking in categories related to the European language standards from A to C, hence, from A1 to B3 in German or C1 or higher in Business English (BE), enabling them to pass the DAF tests or the next exams.

What a sad reality to mention here: some of them are still unable to present ideas or a personal pitch in the unique way of life in up to 55 countries worldwide, in just-in-time manners: 1, 2, 3, German! PLEASE IN ENGLISH! Well done, you might have been hired… as a MBA in two years studying abroad again…

Back from the little excursion from Asia, the experts in Europe, arriving from Stockholm on the IT convention, report that two years of research works have revealed much better learning results when the learning conditions were changed.

So, when people start to re-think “how to learn languages faster and better”, it can be developed with IT software with the aim to do it smoothly: highly efficient schools in Sweden do so.

We are waiting to read some written reviews from the IT convention there to mention here, if possible, some link or hint for possible downloads.

Finally, the surprise was a big one. One invited HR manager, of a global leader in car manufacturing, urged there on the stage of the IT convention: ‘European talents as the future applicants must be able to speak German properly’ especially inside the enterprise network. This caused a lot of questions from the audience. I don’t know how it works in US car companies…

Reflecting, why are meetings held worldwide by their huge group outside of Germany only in English due to their role as a player in a leading export nation: Germany international… some of the answers to FAQs (raised by the loyal audience, remaining there until the last round), were not formulated well enough to believe that German should be a language in international businesses.

And, it is that fact that obliges the applicants to communicate and perfectly present their products in Business English or French, but not German, this is what HR people still think after the IT convention, not daring to shout their opinions publicly, reporting some of the voices.

So, why do skilled talents should be able to speak the German language? This is what the IT convent and its keynote speakers claimed altogether in one team: change it rapidly and underline the needs to re-qualify the German staff in extra courses like ‘in-house communication’. This will improve progressively multilingual levels in global enterprises. So the experts say: “This aim is worth to go.” Do it now, or never!”

Finally, the skills shortage should not double again: its figures will rise from 63.000 job vacancies to more than 120.000 in the year 2020.

Consequences and reactions

Reflecting what were the answers of round about one thousand visitors in the Convention Center in Strasbourg? “This is a surprise, we would not be glad, if the French people engineers got used to talk the language of our neighbour. It would be better if they insist on learning Spanish or Japanese… Therefore, still unable to explore the worlds in Great Britain, England and Germany for a while, “they could compete on IT markets in Stuttgart and leave our country, too” one smart HR recruiting agency assistant said to me, when I left with her silent voice. “So, the salaries can remain on lower levels, made for more people, and more social… ” This is a trend worldwide.

The consequences of the ongoing brain drain hits European intelligence which is still immigrating to California’s Silicon Valley. Attracted by plenty of choices in that global player’s multilingual enterprises, this is what they like. The shouted: “That’s hip!”

Go Us Asia…