Innovationen in Deutschland - Wie lassen sich Unterschiede in den Betrieben erklären? : Ergebnisse aus dem IAB-Betriebspanel 2019

"The results of the IAB Establishment Panel survey for 2019 - i.e. the period before the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic - still draw a positive picture of the establishments’ economic situation and the overall employment development in Germany. The trend in total employment is still positive, the labor market dynamics has slightly increased compared to previous years. Innovation-oriented establishments show considerably higher growth rates in employment and a slightly higher employee turnover than companies without innovations. Moreover, an increase in average establishment wages is apparent. The structure of formal occupational skill requirements has hardly changed overall, but clear differences between the sectors are observable. In addition, there is a correlation between the occupational skill requirements and the innovative strength of the establishments, with innovative establishments requiring more highly qualified employees. The demand for skilled employees continued to rise in 2019, reaching 2.8 million people; and it is particularly high in the high-employment sectors and in innovation-oriented establishments. The share of vacant positions for skilled labour (the non-occupancy quota) is also rising, although the increase is slightly slowing down compared to previous years. More than one third of the German establishments are innovators. Overall, the improvement of own products or services is the most common type of innovation. In large establishments, process innovations play a comparatively important role, whereas the share of radical innovations (i.e. products/services that do not yet exist on the market) decreases with company size. Besides sector-specific differences, a number of further establishments’ characteristics influence innovation activities. A multivariate analysis shows that the size of the establishment, access to international markets, the intensity of competition and access to fast Internet connections foster innovation activities. In addition, there are clear differences between East German and West German establishments. Also the employment structure, especially the share of highly qualified employees and employees in research and development, is important. The survey results also show that, in addition to high investment costs and organizational problems, the shortage of appropriately qualified employees is increasingly becoming an obstacle to planned innovations. On the other hand, restrictions in debt financing are less important, even for small and/or East German companies. The proportion of establishments authorized to provide in-house vocational training that actually train apprentices is increasing, particularly in East Germany. However, the share of vacant apprenticeships also increases markedly to about one fourth in West German establishments and more than one-third in East Germany. The recruitment rate of successful graduates is more than three quarters. The findings regarding further education remain more or less stable over the last years. The share of establishments supporting further education of their employees is about fifty percent, the proportion of employees participating in training is about one third, and slightly higher in East German establishments. Furthermore, a correlation between the frequency of training participation and the qualification level of the employees is still observable." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))