The German Labour Market After the Pandemic. What Measures Should Employers Take

German employers fear that, starting this autumn, they will again face difficulty finding candidates or that their costs might increase because of labour costs for a large number of skilled and unskilled workers, according to our consultants. That is why we talked with our staff monitoring the German workforce market in the railway industry to recommend us some tips for our partners and these are their recommendations.

According to our Account Managers, the German labour market for infrastructure and railway development projects looks completely different in 2021 compared to 2020 and it seems that we have already returned to a context similar to that of 2018 – 2019, given that every month employers bring to the market more and more jobs and candidates seem to be hard to find.

“With a spectacular return of some sectors that were put on standby last year, such as food and hospitality or tourism, companies are already starting a fierce fight to attract relevant candidates. In addition, we expect this autumn a comeback and a series of changes in the relationship with candidates and employees. The change that most employers see, but also the one they fear the most is the increase in the turnover rate in companies.” says Gabriel Florea, CEO of Geologic-HR.

Against this background, another cause of concern for German recruiters is that they will again have difficulty finding candidates for a large number of infrastructure or railway projects, says the representative of our recruitment platform.

According to our human resources specialists, employees will demand an increase in salaries. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, we kept in touch with our partners telling them that it will be a temporary change in the balance of power between employers and candidate and that once the pandemic slows down, we will see how candidates will start gaining momentum in negotiating their salaries and their benefits. Now we are seeing that this reshuffling of demand and supply of workforce will take place faster than we expect.” added Gabriel Florea, CEO of Geologic HR.

The time has come, and employers are already making plans for autumn, taking into account a number of changes that will occur very soon or which have already begun to occur. For candidates, it is the good news they have been waiting for a long time, but for employers it is announced an extremely competitive period, especially for recruiting those people who fall into the category of key talents or essential workers which might not have qualification but whose work is crucial for project developments.

In addition, many companies are coming out of this pandemic with the employer brand damaged, which is why we believe some companies will not be able to rebuild their reputation, and others we believe will have to invest a lot in recruitment and employer branding, in order to succeed in attracting key people. That is why we recommend all our partners to evaluate their budgets and opportunities in order to depressurize the demand for workforce. Partnerships with personnel agencies like ours might provide the lucrative workforce needed in all infrastructure projects. We also recommend to increase transparency regarding work benefits, expectations and projects’ objectives as the pandemic pushed everyone to take a step back and evaluate their expectations, regardless if they are workers or recruiters.

Our mission is to help European companies select and import the human resources they need to optimize the activities they carry out. We recruit unskilled and skilled personnel for European companies developing railway infrastructure projects. Our candidates are thoroughly scanned before being selected and presented to our business partners. Our consultants list a series of non-formal and formal skills they appreciate a blue-collar worker should take into consideration when submitting their resume, in order to be considered for a project abroad.

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 labour 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.