Premiere: German Skilled Worker Award goes to seven winners

The Federal Ministry of Labor made history at the beginning of this week: for the first time ever, the German Skilled Labor Award was presented to seven winners. The award is intended to honor companies, businesses, and individuals who have made outstanding contributions to attracting and retaining skilled workers.

A seven-member jury of experts on the topics of securing skilled workers, the labor market, and education selected the 21 final nominees from around 500 applications in seven categories, from which the winners were chosen on February 26. All companies, networks, and institutions that implement innovative and successful measures to secure skilled workers in a practical manner were eligible to apply.

The first of the seven categories focused on vocational training. Here, the technology group SCHOTT was honored for its target group-specific and interactive formats that directly address school students in particular. In the related category of “Continuing Education,” the integration-promoting association “Zukunft trotz Handicap” (Future Despite Handicap) won. In the area of skilled worker immigration, the construction company Züblin impressed with its successful multilingual skilled worker integration. The winner of the Digital Approaches category also focuses on continuing education: Deutsche Bahn, with its “Job Compass,” which shows internal career paths.

The winners in the categories of “Earning Potential” (Ortenau Klinikum) and “Work Culture” (Tischlerei Raummodul) stood out in particular for their innovative working time models. The Paula Network, which helps female entrepreneurs in rural areas to gain greater visibility and networking opportunities, was honored as the “Innovative Network.”

Following the awards ceremony, the Federal Ministry of Labor now plans to work closely with the winners and nominees to present their approaches and programs and raise awareness of them.

We were also interested in the following topics:

• AI in the workplace: Many employees are concerned that their jobs could be replaced by AI in the near future. However, an MIT researcher sees potential for the opposite: t3n explains how AI could create a new professional middle class.

• Job cuts: Many German companies are currently far from creating new jobs and are instead planning to cut staff. The Handelsblatt summarizes which corporations are particularly affected at the moment.

• Low-wage sector: The lowest-paid jobs in Germany are still predominantly held by women. This is according to a request for information submitted by the Left Party to the federal government, as a result of which the party is now calling for more active political promotion of equality.

• Work in academia: Those who embark on a career in academia at universities usually accept years of work in temporary positions. However, this is not always legal from the employer's point of view, as a recent ruling by the Federal Labor Court shows. Details can be found in Zeit.

If you are particularly interested in the field of public affairs, we would like to recommend our CHECKPOINT Political Consulting event on May 16. There you can meet political consultancies such as 365 Sherpas, ADVERB, Hill & Knowlton, Fink & Fuchs, FleishmanHillard, and Johannsen + Kretschmer in person.

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