Technology »Made in Germany« is in great demand worldwide. According to a study conducted by the Association for electrical engineering, electronics and information technology (VDE), Germany will defend its position as the world´s leader in the field of innovations in electrical engineering and information technology over the next ten years. In the field of microsystems technology Germany is among the world´s leaders. According to the study, however, an increasing lack of experts in this field could curb the development in this innovative industry.
The current VDE job market barometer, which is an analysis of online job ads published by 1000 high tech companies and which was compiled by the VDE in co-operation with worldwidejobs.de, lists 7597 vacancies for engineers in the field of electrical and information engineering. This in an increase by about 10% as compared to last year. For the year 2007 the VDE expects just 9600 people to graduate in electrical and information engineering. The number of experts needed, however, is much higher, says VDE.
According to the VDE study about half of all VDE members fear that in future they might not be able to recruit enough specialists any more. Currently no solution seems to be available. Demand is growing while the number of graduates is stagnating. Even though there are excellent career opportunities in this field, the number of first year students in electrical and information engineering has fallen by 4% to 16.900 as compared to last year. 