FREISING, Germany — The steady purr of the production line at industrial pumpmaker HAWE Hydraulik SE’s plant would evoke envy in much of the industrialized world. It’s the sound of the German jobs machine.
Just a year ago, HAWE, based in this Munich suburb, had cut its workforce by a third, and the remaining 350 employees were working at most three days a week.
But against all company forecasts, orders started rolling in over the winter as world trade reignited, and managers ramped up production of high-pressure pumps and valve controls for machining tools, wind energy and solar-power plants.
The company is struggling again — now to find qualified workers to hand-inspect parts and operate machinery on the factory floor.
German companies, roaring back from the recession ahead of many of their foreign competitors, are hanging out “Help Wanted” signs.
Germany’s managers need 34,000 engineers, 28,000 cooks, 23,000 factory workers and 20,000 caregivers. Chancellor Angela Merkel even has declared full employment — the lowest level of sustainable unemployment without fueling inflation — a realistic goal.
German officials figure they will reach full employment at around 4 percent joblessness, meaning just about everyone who wants a job has one, and vacancies are mostly due to voluntary turnover.
Already, Germany’s unemployment rate for 2010 of 6.9 percent is the lowest since reunification 20 years ago. That compares with Spain, where unemployment is stuck at 20 percent and likely to drop only to 19.2 percent next year, and Ireland, facing a jobless rate of 13.6. Its residents are once again looking abroad for work.
Germany’s prosperous south — home to carmakers Daimler, BMW and Mercedes as well as the Siemens conglomerate and scores of smaller businesses — has achieved on a regional level something close to Merkel’s vision of full employment. Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg have jobless rates of 3.8 percent and 4.4 percent.
The German labor market’s robust rebound from the world economic crisis is the result of a combination of public and private efforts, experts say. They include the underlying healthy state of German industries, the impact of painful welfare cuts made years before and measures taken by the current government to manage the crisis.
“I think the best thing they did was even before the crisis, 10 years ago or so, when they concentrated on improving production, keeping wage growth moderate and gaining competitiveness and market share,” said Marco Annunziata, the London-based chief economist for Unicredit. “That was their consistent and underlying strength.”
