“Transformation Through Skilled Trades” – New Approaches to Recruiting Skilled Workers in the Skilled Trades Sector..
Demographic change, digitalization, and skilled worker shortages pose major challenges for the skilled trades sector. Against this backdrop, the Federal Employment Agency (BA) and the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) launched the pilot project “Transformation Through Skilled Trades” in 2021. The goal was to test new approaches to recruiting skilled workers and to enhance the appeal of the skilled trades as an employer.
The IAW conducted a scientific evaluation of the pilot project and its subprojects on behalf of the Federal Employment Agency’s Lower Saxony-Bremen Regional Directorate. The results and the resulting recommendations for action have now been published in theIAW Policy Reportsseries.
Benefits and Costs of Occupational Safety and Health Prevention Measures.
Measures to protect and promote health in the workplace involve costs, but at the same time can reduce absenteeism, maintain work capacity, and increase productivity. This is one of the findings of a scoping review of 282 individual studies and 123 literature reviews conducted by the IAW on behalf of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA). The studies differ in terms of their methods, measures, and evaluation approaches, so that broad conclusions regarding cost-effectiveness can only be drawn to a limited extent. There is a particular need for further research on organizational prevention approaches as well as on the effects on social security systems and the economy as a whole.
AI has made its way into businesses in Baden-Württemberg, but is not yet widely used.
AI already plays a visible role in businesses in Baden-Württemberg: 31 percent of businesses in the state use generative and/or non-generative AI. Generative AI accounts for the bulk of this usage: 28 percent of businesses use generative AI, placing Baden-Württemberg above the Germany-wide average of 24 percent. Non-generative AI is significantly less common, at 7 percent.
The IAW recently published these and other interesting findings on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in companies in Baden-Württemberg in the IAW Brief Report 1/2026. The analysis, based on the IAB Enterprise Panel 2025, was commissioned by the Baden-Württemberg Regional Directorate of the Federal Employment Agency.
News from the IAW: IAW News 2/2026 online.
When emergency personnel commute: Workforce mobility as a challenge for civil protection
Industrial policy support programs: linking economic transformation with social conditions and cushioning the impact
11th Bundesbank-IAW Lecture with Prof. Dr. mult. Dr. h.c. Ulrike Malmendier on May 7, 2026, at the University of Tübingen
New research project: Young adults' attitudes toward the welfare state
According to the latest nowcast by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IAW) and the University of Hohenheim, Baden-Württemberg’s gross domestic product is set to rise by 0.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the previous quarter, adjusted for seasonal and working-day effects. Positive growth is also forecast for the following two quarters, although this is expected to slow towards the end of the year.
Ninth joint workshop organised by the ‘Women and Work’ contact points and the equal opportunities officers for the labour market. Stuttgart, Haus der Wirtschaft.
Keynote presentation:
Women’s employment in Baden-Württemberg – The role of work-life balance measures. A study based on the IAB Baden-Württemberg Firm Panel.
What support do businesses need from employment agencies, job centres and contact points?
Themed discussion in a World Café format:
Work-life balance in small businesses – what are the obstacles, and what helps?
3rd IAW Workshop on Growth, Prosperity and Democracy in Stuttgart.
This workshop took place on 12 June and focused in particular on the following questions:
Is it necessary to rebalance the relationship between the state, civil society and private-sector actors in order to achieve welfare state objectives even during a period of zero growth?
How can the emergence of communicative power and its institutional translation into administrative power be secured under the changed conditions?
How can the changed conditions for action be translated into an informed public discourse with the potential for rational policy decisions?
The results of this workshop will be published in 2027 as the third volume in the series ‘Growth. Prosperity. Democracy’.
