Home financing - please provide an assessment

From a "professional" perspective (in the field of economics), these are all skilled workers. We currently do not have a general labor shortage. We have 2.993 million unemployed, plus 1.7 million underemployed (ABM, short-term sick leave), over 800,000 topping-up benefit recipients, 660,000 involuntarily employed part-time workers who would actually prefer to work full-time (there may be overlap with topping-up recipients here). By the way, especially many from the last group work in retail and hospitality! So compared to these numbers, 1.4 million open positions are not that many... But it is mainly unskilled and semi-skilled people who are job-seeking. People with training, who also want to work in their field (especially in healthcare many no longer want to continue working there because of the difficult conditions), have less difficulty finding any job. But this is also currently changing again. There are many outplacement measures and hiring freezes, especially in IT, where for a long time training in the field was a job guarantee, due to poor economic prospects and mood. So I am not talking about large waves of layoffs, but companies desperately looking for people is no longer the case. Two years ago a career changer with a data analyst crash course could demand a starting salary of 50-60k EUR. Today, even with a PhD, you have difficulty getting more than 70k EUR. And you no longer get your dream job everywhere either. The fact that more and more companies dare to reintroduce mandatory office presence is not without reason. Just 18 months ago our management had to abandon the plan to increase presence days from 2 to 3 because it led to too many resignations and threats thereof. Let's see how it will look this year...

These are all "skilled workers" from a professional point of view (in the field of economics). We currently do not have a general shortage of labor.

So what then are not skilled workers? In economics, there are almost only unskilled workers left. And then we are back to a labor shortage and not the colloquial "skilled labor shortage." The general public equates skilled workers with highly educated top employees. Yes, those are also missing. But there is a shortage everywhere. Despite the pool of unemployed people.

But it is mainly unskilled and semi-skilled workers who are job-seeking.

So no skilled workers.

What do you want to tell me? I want to say: There is a shortage of skilled workers (these are all those with a vocational qualification that enables them to perform a qualified activity) - in some industries less than in others. There is no general shortage of labor; on the contrary, there is a shortage of jobs or, conversely, we have too few qualified workers and too many unqualified ones. For the definition No skilled workers are people without vocational training. So unskilled and semi-skilled helpers. Especially in [Gastro], in retail and transport, there are relatively many of them (also in care, but there is also a high demand for non-skilled workers there). Above all, these are often unemployed in contrast to your statement that there is a shortage of labor everywhere. In the narrower sense, people with additional training and academics are not skilled workers in science either, but specialists or experts (so more than skilled workers); however, this is often mixed together colloquially. So a skilled worker is generally anyone who has at least a vocational training or a higher qualification.

But there is a shortage everywhere. Despite the pool of unemployed people.

But that is by definition not a labor shortage. That would mean that the potential is already missing, so there simply are no people. We have had that in Germany before. We are light years away from that. What is missing are tailored trainings. And where it would even work without tailored training, the wages are so bad that a relevant number of people do not take it. You could also say: The companies cannot find a fool who exploits himself for 40h+. And yes, it is self-exploitation. My mother-in-law works at the garden wholesale market as a jack-of-all-trades. Sales, cash register, warehouse, nursery, keys to the safe. She was already asked if she could help in the office, since she can keep the books so neatly. Minimum wage, unpaid overtime, which you have to fight to get compensated. She applied elsewhere, every other market (participant) would take her immediately. For minimum wage, of course. For 3-4 euros more? No, some markets would rather stay closed. Price policy otherwise not maintainable against competitors.

These are all skilled workers "professionally" speaking (in the field of economics). We currently do not have a general shortage of labor. (...)

Correct. However, we have a sometimes severe shortage of workers who are still willing to do more than 9 to 5 office work... Field service, especially worldwide, shift work, irregular assignments, work on weekends and holidays, seasonal business, on-call duties, etc. There is actually no shortage of people who want to sit in the office in the public sector... And even if one would like to believe that: among the millions of unemployed, unfortunately many cannot be adequately qualified anymore. The tasks are becoming more demanding, and a certain number of people simply cannot keep up anymore.

The tasks are becoming more demanding, a certain number of people simply can't keep up anymore.

I so rarely agree with you that I want to do it explicitly here. Tasks that were standard in my grandparents' time, still available by the millions in my parents' time, are now gone or have been transformed and made more difficult to the point that they are no longer comparable. People like to talk about the good old days when at 15 you went straight from elementary school into a job and performed there at the latest after your training. Use your imagination to picture how that would work in today's jobs.