Railway Workforce Development

Retirement and recruitment are the most popular tag searches in the railway industry these days. As the baby boomers’ workforce is aging and it is on track for retirement, there is a rising demand for workforce in freight and passenger transportation. Thus, railways need to recruit new employees to run and maintain trains and networks.

On a European Union level, approx. 1% of all employees in the EU work in railway companies. Rail companies are also significant employers in their countries, although there are variations from Member State to Member State (from 3.9% in Luxembourg to 0.1% in Greece) . 

And we can resume some interesting observations from Eurostat when considering the railway workforce. For a fact, most railway employees work either in France, Germany, the UK or Poland. Furthermore, a large number of workers in the sector (more than 50,000) work in Italy, Austria and Romania. 

And on top of all these, Europe is experiencing demographic change with inevitable consequences for employment and companies. The aging of population coupled with the decline of the rail sector and its historical heritage of state-owned companies poses significant challenges to this industry. These include challenges related to an aging workforce in the sector, staff retention, skills obsolescence as well as the recruitment of new personnel.

When it comes to the railway sector in Germany, the main challenge is demographic – e.g. aging – followed by skill shortages, the development of technology and IT and to some extent the post-pandemic economic crisis. 

The decreasing number of employees on the labour market is already evident, in particular in urban areas such as Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and Hamburg. According to public data from Deutsche Bahn Germany, the average age of employees in all railway companies is between 40-50 years. Therefore, companies will be even more under pressure to find employees in 10-20 years once these people will retire.

The same reports from Eurostat show hat Deutsche Bahn alone will have to recruit between 7000-8000 new staff on an annual basis, mainly as a result of existing workers retiring. The average age in the company is 46, but in some departments and occupations it can be much higher. DB faces the following key challenges in its recruitment efforts:

Image of the company and the sector

Lack of knowledge about the wide variety of professions available in DB and for which it offers apprenticeship programmers

High employment rates in some regions

High demand for similar occupational profiles from other companies, particularly in the south of the country

At Geologic HR we put all our leadership and business skills into action for our business partners. We understand the market’s challenges and we are building innovative strategies and online campaigns to recruit the best temporary workers.  Last but not least, we ensure that these jobs can deliver both core labor and a sustainable income, with legal protections, wages, and safety nets that are enjoyed by temporary workers in the whole EU, taking pressure from our partners in finding the right people. In case you will have any questions on how we can help you do not hesitate to write us at or give us a call.