According to Ingenieurmonitor there are currently 64,000 vacant posts for engineers in Germany. Even though the number of vacancies fell by 2% as compared to March, the demand for engineers is still much higher than the respective offer. All in all there is a lack of about 40,000 engineers on the labour market. About half of these vacant posts are to be found in North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria. In particularly high demand are mechanical engineers and motor vehicle construction engineers who account for 40% of all engineer vacancies.
A current study by the Association of German Engineers (VDI) and the Institute for the German Economy (IW) in Cologne revealed that over the next five years one fifth of all companies will have to replace retiring engineers. It will be difficult to staff additional engineer vacancies, because it will be difficult enough to replace all these experienced engineers due to a limited number of young engineer graduates.
Mechanical and motor vehicle construction engineers are sought-after in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. This particularly refers to aerospace and aviation engineers given that businesses such as Airbus and suppliers from the aviation and aerospace industry are located in these regions. There are 3,715 vacancies in Hamburg. Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are less affected by a lack of engineers even though demand is still bigger than demand in these regions. According to VDI and IW it is not possible to fill all vacant posts with unemployed engineers.
The engineer monitor (Ingenieurmonitor) for April 2009 is available for free-of-charge download. 