A decade of successful networking for the Jena location

Jena Alliance for Skilled Workers celebrates ten years of strategic cooperation

The Jena Alliance for Skilled Workers celebrated a decade of good cooperation this week. For ten years, experts from companies, trade associations, the employment agency, the state and local authorities, the education sector and universities have been working together in this network to discuss how sustainable recruitment of skilled workers can be achieved in Jena. The annual meetings serve to share experiences and network those stakeholders who want to jointly develop solutions to the challenges posed by the need for skilled workers. The Jena Alliance was formed from the Jena Economic Development Agency's (JenaWirtschaft) working group on securing skilled workers, which was founded in 2009.

"The Jena Economic Development Agency recognized the fundamental importance of this topic more than ten years ago,"

summarized JenaWirtschaft boss Wilfried Röpke.

"Only if the local economy can attract and retain enough qualified people as employees can the city continue to develop as successfully as it has in recent decades."

Over the next few years, companies will not only have to replace around 17,000 workers who will be retiring by 2030, but also recruit new staff, so there is a lot for the experts in the Jena Alliance for Skilled Workers to discuss, confirms Ramona Scheiding, Head of the Skilled Workers Service at JenaWirtschaft :

"We work on a very wide range of topics - from A for training to Z for target group - and rely on the initiative of our panel, which works very well."

The shortage of skilled workers can only be tackled together

The members of the alliance set their own thematic priorities in advance. The 50 or so participants discussed ways in which housing for trainees can be realized, which new recruitment trends are becoming important, how a successful lateral entry can be achieved, how new international employees can be supported in the best possible way and how young people can be comprehensively supported in their professional orientation.

The most important insight was that everything is easier together and individuals can benefit optimally from the group's experience. The Lord Mayor of Jena, Dr. Thomas Nitzsche, as patron of the Jena Alliance, also confirmed that the challenges in the area of skilled workers are best tackled in cooperation:

"We need to address this issue in an overarching manner; the Skilled Workers Alliance provides the appropriate framework for this. No single state or central body will be able to solve this problem ",

said Mayor Nitzsche.

And so further future fields of action were discussed in a joint exchange. The diverse range of topics ranged from trainee housing, age-appropriate further training and qualifications for career changers to new communication channels. Follow-up meetings have already been arranged in smaller groups to concretize and implement the ideas developed over the coming months.