Fachkräftemangel is a permanent topic in German public debate, with its own government programmes, its own immigration legislation, and its own annual statistics. The noun refers to a shortage of Fachkräfte specifically — not of workers, and not of graduates.
Called to the field
Berufung means vocation or calling — and the same word is used for the formal appointment of a professor to a chair. The word treats the taking up of a field as something one is called to rather than something one selects.
The university of applied sciences
The Fachhochschule is a parallel higher education system, oriented to application and practice, with professors required to have years of professional experience outside the university. It is not a lesser university. It is a different route to the same depth, and German employers read the two differently rather than ranking them.
The doctorate in business
Doctorates are notably common in German senior management, particularly in engineering, chemistry and law, and the title appears on the business card and in the email signature. In the German case the doctorate is read as depth in a subject rather than as a credential for leadership.
The trade press
Germany sustains an unusually dense Fachzeitschrift sector — periodicals for individual industries, trades and professional specialisms, many published for decades. The reader is assumed to want depth in one field rather than breadth across several.
Examined by the trade
The journeyman and master examinations — Gesellenprüfung and Meisterprüfung — are taken before a chamber committee, not before the employer, and both have written, practical and oral parts. The assessment of competence is removed from the workplace entirely and given to the trade.
The register of trades
Die Handwerksrolle is a public register of qualified craft businesses, maintained by the chambers of crafts. Entry requires the Meister qualification in the relevant trade. You are not a roofer because you roof. You are a roofer because you are in the roll.
Specialist and generalist
German uses both words, and only one of them is a compliment. Generalist is not an insult exactly. But it describes an absence, and in a German professional context the absence is of a field.
The chamber
Die Kammer. German professions organise into chambers — of crafts, of industry and commerce, of engineers, of architects, of physicians. The chamber examines, certifies, registers and disciplines. Membership is often compulsory. Your standing in a field is held by an institution, not by your employer.
The cross-entrant
Cross-entrant. The German word for somebody who has moved into a field from outside it. It is not hostile, but it is never neutral either. The word marks the person as having arrived by a side door, and it stays attached to them.