What Berlin’s Skilled Labour Strategy 2035 Means 2035 for Companies
It is the year 2026, and Germany is still facing the same major problem that has been putting pressure on the labour market for years. The shortage of skilled labour is no longer a temporary issue, and it is not a problem limited to Germany alone. Many leading European economies are dealing with the same challenge. For companies, especially SMEs, the real question is no longer whether the shortage exists. The real question is what to do about it.
In Berlin, the Senate has now set a clearer direction with its Skilled Labour Strategy 2035.
The issue is not abstract, and the numbers speak for themselves. Between 2025 and 2035, more than 560,000 jobs in Berlin will need to be filled. At the same time, around 10,000 new jobs are expected to be created by 2035. These figures alone show that the shortage of skilled labour in Germany’s startup capital is not a short-term problem. It is a structural challenge that will continue to affect companies for years to come.
Berlin thrives on innovation, entrepreneurship, and one of Europe’s strongest startup ecosystems. But none of that works without people. If the city wants to remain economically strong, it will need to attract and retain skilled talent through serious planning and practical implementation. That is why the Berlin Senate’s strategy does not focus only on training, upskilling, and better framework conditions. It also explicitly includes the recruitment of international skilled workers. Berlin describes the Skilled Labour Strategy 2035 as a key foundation for managing the city’s future transformation. At the same time, the Senate points out that around 31 percent of people in employment in Berlin already come from abroad. International employment is no longer a future topic. It is already part of Berlin’s economic reality.
For Berlin companies, especially SMEs, the message is clear: anyone still thinking about workforce planning in purely local terms is planning against reality.
Why the strategy matters for companies
The Berlin Skilled Labour Strategy 2035 may be written as a political framework, but its impact is highly operational. For many SMEs, this is not a document to glance at once and move on from. It goes straight to a practical question: how are open roles supposed to be filled in the years ahead?
The Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry makes the same point even more clearly. According to its labour market monitor, more than 163,000 jobs could remain unfilled by 2035. At the same time, around 412,000 employees and roughly 520,000 people in the labour force are expected to retire by then. Even today, around 45,000 positions remain vacant.
That should be a wake-up call. The Berlin labour market alone will not close this gap. Companies that want to grow, maintain performance, or simply stay stable in the coming years will need to rethink how they attract talent. That means building new pathways, both locally and internationally.
International skilled worker recruitment is no longer optional
The Skilled Labour Strategy 2035 makes one thing clear: securing talent will require several levers at once. Training and qualification remain important, of course. But the strategy also shows that skilled immigration already plays a critical role in certain sectors. This is especially visible in healthcare and nursing, where the official strategy already describes skilled immigration and the long-term retention of international employees as an important part of the solution.
The conclusion for other sectors is hard to ignore. International recruitment is no longer a niche approach or a last resort. For many SMEs, it is becoming a necessary addition to local hiring efforts. In sectors with long vacancy periods, intense competition for talent, or a limited local candidate pool, international hiring is moving from optional to essential.
Where companies get stuck in practice
On paper, international hiring often sounds straightforward. Identify a candidate, prepare the contract, organise the paperwork, and plan the start date. In reality, this is where things often begin to slow down.
Most delays do not happen because the candidate is unsuitable. They happen because execution is underestimated.
Visa feasibility, recognition procedures, deadlines, documentation, communication with authorities, and the actual onboarding process in Germany are often more complex than companies expect. Then there are practical issues such as relocation, integration, and the simple question of whether the intended start date is realistic at all. This is where companies lose time, money, and planning certainty.
The Berlin strategy identifies many of the right priorities. But for many SMEs, the real question remains: who handles all of this internally when there is neither the time nor the experience to manage it properly? A political strategy only becomes useful when it can be translated into clear, workable processes.
What companies should do now
For companies in Berlin, the Skilled Labour Strategy 2035 points to one clear conclusion: international hiring needs to be planned earlier, more realistically, and with much more structure.
Not every country of origin is suitable for every role. Not every timeline is realistic. Not every candidate can move through the same process under the same conditions. Companies that ask these questions too late can lose months very quickly. That is why international skilled worker recruitment requires more than finding candidates. It requires proper upfront assessment, realistic planning, and operational coordination.
From our perspective at terratalent, three things matter most.
- First, companies need a realistic feasibility check before they hire. They need to understand whether the chosen route is workable, what risks exist, and what timeline is realistic.
- Second, they need operational structure. Visa procedures, recognition steps, documentation, and authority communication do not take care of themselves. If international hiring is meant to be predictable, it needs to be actively managed.
- Third, the process does not end when the offer is signed. A hire is only successful when the employee has arrived, is legally able to work, and is ready to start properly.
Need support?
terratalent helps companies prepare and implement international hiring in a structured way. We assess feasibility, evaluate risks, create clarity around visa, recognition, and timing issues, and support the next steps in the process. For companies without in-house experience in international skilled worker recruitment, that often makes the difference between uncertainty and real planning certainty.
What the Berlin Skilled Labour Strategy 2035 gets right
From our perspective, the strategy gets an important point right: the shortage of skilled labour cannot be solved in isolation. It connects labour market policy, education, transformation, integration, and broader location strategy. That reflects reality. Companies do not feel labour shortages only in recruiting. They feel them in productivity, service delivery, operational resilience, and growth.
It is also right that Berlin is no longer thinking about talent only within national borders. The numbers, the growing role of international workers, and the explicit inclusion of skilled immigration show that this issue has now fully entered practical policy.
Now the focus needs to shift to implementation. Companies do not need more general debate. They need realistic, predictable pathways they can actually use.
Conclusion
The Berlin Skilled Labour Strategy 2035 is an important signal. It makes clear how much pressure there is to act and why international skilled worker recruitment has to become a fixed part of the solution. For companies, that means one thing above all: anyone who wants to remain operational in Berlin over the long term has to think about international hiring both strategically and practically.
In the end, the difference will not be made by good intentions or policy papers alone. It will be made by execution. That is where it will become clear whether a skilled labour strategy leads to actual hires or remains just another well-worded plan.
Source: IHK berlin and Senate Department for Labour, Social Affairs, Equality, Integration, Diversity and Anti-Discrimination
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