Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – From the point of view of the regional directorate of the Federal Employment Agency, the labor market in Baden-Württemberg will be stable in the coming year. The regional agency head Christian Rauch expects an annual average unemployment rate of 3.7 percent, as he announced on Wednesday in Stuttgart. According to Rauch, that would be 0.1 percentage points more than the annual average for 2022.
If you adjust for the special effects from the arrival of Ukrainian refugees, Baden-Württemberg has already reached the pre-corona level of unemployment, said Rauch. That is “positive news”. According to the forecast, the number of employees subject to social security contributions in the south-west is likely to increase by 0.9 percent in 2023.
Rauch saw the shortage of skilled workers as a major challenge. The number of completed vocational training contracts is decreasing. In 2021 this was around 66,000. According to Rauch, there were about as many this year. According to Rauch, 66,000 successfully trained people would need to go directly into the labor market every year to compensate for age-related departures from the labor market. However, if you take into account the drop-out rate of 20 percent, you are already below the demand.
