When Emrullah Karaca started working at a factory in Gifhorn, Germany, where auto parts supplier Continental makes components for hydraulic brakes, he was looking for a temporary job after finishing high school.
But after spending more than two decades building a career in the factory, Karaca, 49 and a father of three, learned that Continental planned to close the plant by 2027. Faced with a difficult job search, he will return to school to obtain your business certificate, courtesy of your employer.
It’s a necessary step if you want to find a job in Germany, where despite a desperate lack of skilled workers, degrees and certifications still count for more than work experience. “I never needed it until now, because I was always here,” Karaca said.
The training program that Mr. Karaca and 80 of his co-workers will undergo is part of an initiative initiated by Continental aimed at helping employees acquire the skills they need for new jobs, whether within Continental or in nearby companies.
Continental is not alone in facing the challenges of Germany’s changing industrial landscape, as manufacturing transforms to meet low-carbon goals, creating upheaval in the workforce. So in 2021, it joined 70 other companies (including Bayer, DHL, Infineon and Siemens) to form the Opportunity Alliance, an initiative aimed at helping them retain the 2.7 million people in their collective workforce.
Experts have welcomed the alliance. Germany has lagged behind its peers in manufacturing automation, and as its industry moves to keep pace, the country faces thousands of job cuts in its automotive and engineering sectors, even as more than 700,000 Positions in all industries remain unfilled.
“These are basically the contradictory priorities we have now: on the one hand, job cuts in combination with tough personnel adjustment processes and, on the other, labor shortages,” said Jutta Rump, director of the Institute. of Employment and Employability of Ludwigshafen.
At Gifhorn, where Continental produces brake lines and valve blocks, the company was facing declining demand and rising energy costs, and it became clear that the factory would soon not be viable.
“We knew we would need many fewer employees,” said Ariane Reinhart, Continental’s executive board member and head of human resources.
That left Karaca (and about 800 other employees) facing an uncertain future. “We all thought we would be here until retirement,” he said.
German companies have a tradition of social responsibility, and Continental leaders were keenly aware of the role the factory played in the community of 41,000, where it was the third-largest employer.
“There were two possible options: either you did it the classic way, and classic means a lot of noisy strikes, union politics and politicians involved,” said Ms. Reinhart, who helped found Continental’s training center in 2019. Or you find a new way of doing things.”
Germany prides itself on its vocational training, which is offered through a dual-track system that combines school courses with practical work experience. About 330 occupations require a trade certification, and anyone who doesn’t have one is out of luck, regardless of the skills they acquired on the job.
“Without a certified qualification, it’s difficult to even be invited for an interview,” said Sven Mewes, part of Continental’s human resources team, which works with employees like Mr. Karaca to determine what training or courses are right for them. . .
Training courses like those offered by Continental and other alliance members have found support from Berlin and regional governments. Political leaders are eager to keep as many people as possible working.
Despite cuts in many fields last year, the government allocated more than 3 billion euros, or $2.79 billion, for companies to offer training programs and certification courses for employees facing the loss of their jobs.
Nearly 20 percent of people who have been out of work in Germany for more than two years have no formal qualifications, which may keep them on the sidelines because they would rather get low-paying jobs than spend three years of their life earning money. a certification.
At an alliance conference this year, Andrea Nahles, head of the Federal Employment Agency, cited the example of the employment center in the western city of Mönchengladbach, where the local unemployment office selected 130 people among the long-term unemployed to start a course to obtain your business certificates and start high-paying jobs.
Amazon then opened a warehouse in the city, attracting all but 13 of the original participants to work on the floor for €16.50 an hour, with no certification required. But several months later, they were all laid off and returned to unemployment, Nahles said.
“They fell into the same situation again,” he said. “It just shows how difficult the whole process can be.”
Beyond internal training, Continental went a step further to support its Gifhorn staff, contacting other companies in the region for workers and offering to train its outgoing employees for potential new positions.
For Stiebel Eltron, a heat pump producer that needs hundreds of workers as it seeks to expand, the offer proved serendipitous. The company signed a deal with Continental last year, agreeing to invest €65 million to take over parts of the existing factory and hire more than a third of Gifhorn’s employees. The state of Lower Saxony will invest an additional €5 million in the project, the exact conditions of which have not been revealed by any of the companies.
“We’re giving 300 people a perspective, a future,” Reinhart said.
This week, Continental announced that arms maker Rheinmetall, which has been expanding rapidly to meet demand for more munitions for the war in Ukraine, agreed to hire up to 100 workers for a factory less than an hour away, guaranteeing employment. future for almost half of Gifhorn’s workforce.
Before starting their new jobs, Continental employees will have the opportunity to improve their skills through the company’s internal training center, one of 14 it maintains in factories across the country. So far, workers aged between 28 and 60 have signed up to gain qualifications to become industrial electricians, warehouse logistics specialists or machine and factory operators.
Courses are held during business hours and are scheduled according to participants’ shifts. Workers continue to earn their wages while in classes, which are compressed into several months, rather than the standard three years.
Karaca, who supports one son in college and two others in high school, said that despite the disappointment of his time at the company coming to an end, he was grateful for the opportunity to find a new job.
“This is the right decision for my future,” Kacara said. “I have to be able to show what I can do.”