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Berlin / Potsdam – Today at noon, the survey results of the 20^th medien.barometer 2022/23 were published live on ALEXOffener Kanal Berlin: 272 companies from Berlin and Brandenburg’s media, creative and digital industries took part between 22 September and 17 November 2022. Helge Jürgens, Managing Director of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and Jeannine Koch, Executive Chairwoman of medianet berlinbrandenburg e.V., moderated the presentation.

Helge Jürgens:“As a funding partner, we are in close communication with the industry. Despite the still challenging general conditions, many subsectors – especially from the digital sector – are again more optimistic about the future, and it is encouraging to note that significantly more companies have already increased their workforce and are planning to do so in the coming year. 80%, however, report issues with procuring skilled workers, which is a situation requiring attention. And there is potential in that, because if we invest in improved training opportunities and optimised integration of international specialists, we can create a real booster for the growth of Berlin-Brandenburg as a media location.”

State Secretary Michael Biel is convinced that Berlin is more than ready for the future: “We want to make Berlin one of Europe’s most important business and technology locations. Berlin as an attractive city has everything it needs for this, which is talent and investment from all over the world.” In this context, Biel has assured that the PEOPLE & CULTURE FESTIVAL can again expect financial support from the Senate Administration in 2023. “It takes this festival to connect businesses with potential workers in one place.” Berlin as a business location continued to grow, Biel said, and the media, creative and digital industries in particular were playing an important role in this positive development.

“The fact that the PEOPLE & CULTURE FESTIVAL will receive the funding it needs once again this year is great news. The medien.barometer results clearly demonstrate that there is a significant need for skilled workers in the media, creative and digital sectors,” sums up Jeannine Koch. She also sees further approaches to solving the problem in addition to the festival in November: “To solve this issue, we need targeted efforts on the part of policymakers to make it easier for international skilled workers to integrate into the German labour market. We require new training and degree programmes at educational institutions which meet the current needs of companies in terms of content, and dedication on the part of the economy in the internal development of tomorrow’s skilled workers.”

272 companies from Berlin and Brandenburg took part in the survey conducted in autumn 2022. These are the 10 key statements:

• Although the assessment of the current economic situation is on a par with the previous year, uncertainties caused e.g. by the Ukraine war, the energy crisis and inflation have lowered future business expectations. After recovering last year in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic shock, the business confidence indexis now down from 141.9 to 126.5 points. In the years before the pandemic, the business climate index averaged 143.5 points.
• The IT and software/games/digital economy sectors are particularly optimistic about the future. Here, 45% and 36% respectively expect positive development in their business area (mean 28%).
• Significantly more companies have increased their workforce in the last 12 months (43%) than reduced it (18%). More than half (52%) plan to employ additional staff in the next 12 months. Most companies in the IT and software/games/digital economy sectors are planning to hire staff in the next 12 months (65% in each sector).
• Four out of five companies report issues with obtaining the required skilled workers, and one out of three to a significant extent. Companies in the creative sectors are searching for staff the most (62%). Here, but also in all other industries, staffing needs are highest at the mid-job level, followed by senior positions: the higher the job level, the longer it takes to fill a position. As an example, 44% of companies need more than six months to fill a senior position in administration.
• Although 61% of companies consider higher education at their location to be quite good or even very good for meeting their own needs, more than one in five companies (22%) believe that no adequate degree programmes exist for today’s job profiles: with regard to dual training, this is the opinion of almost one in three companies (31%).
• Just under half of companies offer trainee programmes (47%) or apprenticeships (43%). Three quarters of companies rely on internal training, half of them on external training, 29% recruit international specialists, and 44% integrate freelancers or career changers (46%) to compensate for a lack of skills or personnel.
• Three quarters of companies (74%) have employees who do not hold German citizenship. The territories of origin are the EU (75%), followed by other European countries (42%), Asia (33%), America (26%), Africa (11%) and Australia/Oceania (8%).
• Slightly more than one in five companies (21%) report employing refugees, mainly from Ukraine, Syria, Iran and Belarus.
• Two thirds of those who have an opinion on this tend to rate the framework conditions for employing international specialists as not good (48%) or not good at all (18%). Three quarters of these companies (76%) stated that, first and foremost, the facilitation of administrative processes and an improvement in the housing situation were needed. 44% would like to see stronger labour law support.
• For almost every second company (47%), attracting and developing skilled workers is among the top-3 issues for the coming 12 months. One in four companies (24%) names improving the order situation as one of the top issues.

In the subsequent panel discussion moderated by Gregor C. Blach (Managing Director of WE DO communication) with the following guests from politics and business, the results were classified and further approaches to solutions were identified:

Michael Biel, State Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Senate Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Operations

Joachim Kosack, Managing Director of UFA GmbH

Professor Dr. Agnes Schipanski, Professor of Media Management and Ambassador for Entrepreneurship at SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences

Professor Dr. Agnes Schipanski from SRH Berlin looks at the possibilities for universities to create new structures for educational programmes: “There needs to be an even broader dovetailing of business and technology disciplines with the creative fields. Only by breaking away from silo thinking can new ideas, projects and potential be developed that are not only valuable and important for students, but for companies as well.”

Joachim Kosack explains why UFA founded the UFA Academy: “We have been training for years as part of the IHK training courses, but we found that this is just not enough. There is also a need for people in companies who have been given a lateral entry in middle age, learning-on-the-job, so to speak.” Dual studies, traditional training opportunities and systematised lateral entry programmes would go a long way in advancing the film industry.

Find the complete medien.barometer 2022/23 with all figures and graphics as well as information on the current business climate index for downloading here (in German).

If you were not able to follow publication of the results and the panel discussion live, you will be able to watch the recording here (in German).

About the medien.barometer:

The medien.barometer berlinbrandenburg sheds light on the mood and economic development of individual subsectors of the ICT, media and creative industries cluster in the capital region. The survey has been looking at the current assessments as well as future prospects of Berlin and Brandenburg companies from the media, creative and digital industries since 2004. The medien.barometer helps to track developments in the industries on an annual basis, mapping them over a period of time. It enables the detection of dynamics and trends, the evaluation of site work and the derivation of site activities. 272 companies from Berlin and Brandenburg participated in the survey in 2022/2023.

The medien.barometer berlinbrandenburg is an initiative of medianet berlinbrandenburg e.V. Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg supports the current survey as a sponsor, and Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) and Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg (ILB) as partners. The technological survey partner is House of Research.