EHI examines the data behind Germany's personnel staffing difficulties

With an online survey and expert interviews with HR managers in the industry, the EHI has taken a close look at the HR situation in the retail sector. The entire study will be presented at the EHI theme day "Recruiting4Retail" on November 7 in Cologne. 

Professionals urgently wanted

The search for suitable personnel is difficult for both branches and headquarters but in varying degrees of intensity. Personnel managers state that it is difficult (46 percent) or even very difficult (42 percent) to find suitable specialist staff for their branches. In addition to retail traders and cashiers, these include, for example, butchers, bakery retailers, and vendors. The search for apprentices is also difficult (42 percent) or very difficult (33 percent).

The headquarters of trading companies have a much easier time in finding young talent to train up - 71 percent say they have no problems. Recruiting professionals for the various functional areas of the control centers, however, is a bigger challenge. 54 percent of HR managers consider the search difficult, and another 21 percent even very difficult. Things aren't rosy in the management and executive segment either; fifty percent of respondents find it difficult to fill jobs in this area, both at branches and at headquarters as well. 

Qualification deficient

Recruiters receive an average of 19 applications per vacancy across all positions. It takes an average of 9 weeks to fill these positions. If jobs remain vacant, this is mainly due to insufficient qualifications of the applicants. This is the opinion of 59 percent of respondents in terms of headquarters and even 83 percent of branches. Other reasons for not filling vacancies at the branches include working hours (79 percent), compensation (75 percent) and the retail image (67 percent). In the central offices, it is above all the high demands of the applicants (46 percent), the insufficient number of applications (42 percent) and the remuneration (42 percent). 

"Retailers are looking for a lot, and indeed a lot," says Ulrike Witt, HR expert at EHI. "Nearly 50,000 vacancies are currently being advertised by the 50 largest retail companies in Germany, especially in the branches specialists are desperately looking for." 

Join us November 12-15 for the Property Portal Watch Conference Madrid 2019.