The impact of skills shortage on economic development in Germany – A mixed method approach

Tobias Johannes Hertrich and Thomas Brenner

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: In Europe, there is an increasing shortage of skilled workers and jobs remain vacant for long periods of time. The shortage of skilled workers has become a key issue for various stakeholders, as it not only makes it difficult to recruit and retain employees, but it is also seen as a significant barrier to innovation for companies. So far, most analyses of skills shortage take place at company level. We supplement this with a regional perspective, because many measures, especially those of policy makers, are conducted on the regional level. We examine the impact of skills shortage on various aspects of regional economic development. Using the spatial vector autoregressive panel model, significant effects on gross domestic product (GDP), employment are found, but not on research and development (R&D) activities. Expert interviews are used to dig deeper into the reasons for these findings, showing that the disadvantages of skills shortages on innovativeness are perceived, but relate to the future or to the more general economic situation.

Keywords: skills shortage; regional development; regional innovativeness; mixed methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J21 J23 O10 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-geo and nep-ino
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:289434

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