Overall ranking
The top 10 professions

Service and reception

Job offers in the hospitality industry make up a particularly large portion of the top 10: Service and reception employees took second place in the overall rankings this year. Their percentage of the overall sample increased to an above-average extent, so they moved up quickly in the rankings. By way of comparison: The profession was still at 41th place in 2023. In the past, however, service and reception employees have occasionally made an appearance among the top ten most sought-after professions.

Hotel and hospitality

There is clear evidence of the high demand for personnel in the hotel and hospitality sector – the career chef was at  7th place (2023: 52). In the past, these jobs have only had such a high ranking in 2009 and 2010. Among hotel and hospitality careers, the lack of trained specialists is greatest for chefs, according to the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (Cologne Institute for Economic Research). Room cleaning staff and kitchen assistants, who also work in hospitality, currently take the tenth spot (2023): 37). 

The strong showings made by these three professions indicate that hospitality companies are looking for large numbers of employees, despite overall fairly cloudy sentiment. The industry may still be dealing with the fact that many staff members moved to other sectors during the pandemic, then never returned.

Educators

Professions in childcare and education are facing shortages. Educators are third place among all professions this year, a higher ranking than ever before. This underscores how high the demand for workers in this field is, even though the number of people working in childcare has increased sharply over the last ten years. In March of 2023, according to the Federal Statistical Office, there were 51 % more pedagogical staff members working in day care centers than in 2013. The number of children cared for in day care centers, and the number of children under three, also increased sharply during that same period.

Forklift drivers

The percentage of job vacancies in warehouse logistics dropped overall. Nevertheless, many companies do need workers who can handle transportation equipment in intralogistics applications. Currently, only forklift drivers are among the top ten professions. They have taken a top ten spot for the third year in a row, improving their position by three spots (4th place) since 2023. Warehouse and transportation employees, who were among the top ten for five years, dropped to 22nd place, however. Order picking employees, likewise, are not among the top spots once again. Logistics and transportation are highly sensitive to economic fluctuations, so the current drop in the percentage of these professions is no surprise.

Production assistants

Semi-skilled workers still have good employment opportunities in production companies, despite the economic cool-down. Production assistants have been a highly sought-after by employers for five years in a row. They are fifth place in the overall rankings (2023: 3).

Energy transformation

Trained specialists are in danger of becoming a limiting factor to the energy transformation. The professions needed to carry out the transformation, in particular, are facing bottlenecks. In addition to electricians, this year system engineers in sanitary, heating and air conditioning and vehicle mechatronics technicians are among the top ten spots (6th and 9th place). These individuals are urgently needed to install photovoltaic or solar systems, for instance, or to produce, maintain, and repair electric cars. Although all three are among the most popular training professions, this will not be sufficient to meet increasing demand.

Healthcare and nursing

Healthcare and nursing professionals have been among the top ten professions for as long as data has been collected. This year, however, they have been reduced to eighth place (2023: 2nd place). At the same time, the number of job offers in healthcare and nursing has dropped overall: 6.9 % of vacancies in the overall sample were available in this field (2023: 8.9 %). The drop, however, should not lead us to lose sight of the fact that shortages in healthcare and nursing professions are still very significant.

Where are the academics?

Although it may have seemed unthinkable in the past, there are no academic professions among the top ten for the first time since data has been collected. Software developers, which are typically found there, have dropped from 5th place to 19th place. The profession has only been out of the top ten one other time since 2008. The Institute for Economic Research also found that the shortage of trained specialists in software development lessened significantly in 2023.

Electrical Engineering

Electrical engineers, were among the top 10 professions once again in 2023 for the first time in several years. They did not keep that spot, however, and have now moved to 13th place. This career does, however, remain the most sought-after engineering discipline. Roughly one in four engineering job advertisements in the sample is for an electrical engineer (26.6 %).

Social work and social pedagogy

Positions for job seekers with a degree in social work and social pedagogy made up a significantly large portion of the sample in 2023 (4th place). The career social worker or social educator is now at 21st place – the second best placement since data has been collected