Managing Director Nico Teutsch is in the winding department of OTEX Textilveredlung GmbH. The company with 90 employees produces special yarns for medical products and technical textiles.
Photo: dpa/Jan Woitas
The textile companies in East Germany have an image problem. Heike Illing-Günther, Director of the Saxon Textile Research Institute in Chemnitz, notices this when she talks about her industry in schools. This earns its money with high-tech products and fibers for the automotive industry and aviation, for hospitals or living areas. Half of the turnover is generated with technical textiles alone, around a third with home textiles and only a tenth with classic clothing. But many students, says Illing-Günther, asked in amazement: “You don’t just knit sweaters?!”
This jumper prejudice needs to be overcome if the industry wants to solve its acute personnel problem. It employs 20,000 people in East Germany, 12,000 of them in Saxony alone. But the 160 companies that are organized in the Association of the North-East German Textile and Clothing Industry (vti) could use far more well-trained employees. There is a “lack of skilled workers,” says Thomas Lindner, board member of the vti and head of a hosiery manufacturer in Hohenstein-Ernstthal. After the slump in sales caused by Corona in 2020, there was a “certain revival” in the following year. However, the companies “could have achieved much higher sales if the necessary staff had been there,” says Lindner.
The fact that it is missing is not only due to the “jumper prejudice”, i.e. a lack of knowledge about what is produced in the companies and what tasks and requirements are associated with it. For a long time, the industry was also considered not very sustainable. With the end of the GDR, an enormous number of companies had been wound up; the number of employees fell by 95 percent. From spinning to sewing, many jobs were done much cheaper in Eastern Europe or Asia. However, with the focus on technical textiles or high-quality clothing, it was possible to retain a hard core of companies. Admittedly, knowledge of this did not reach the general public sufficiently.
Then there is demographic change. In many companies, “experienced people are now retiring,” says Nico Teutsch, Managing Director of Otex Textilveredelung in Flöha, whose 90 employees produce refined and “skin-flattering” yarns for medicine and stockings: “There is almost nothing else like it in Europe ‘ says German. In order to keep production running, he obviously has to expend more and more energy to recruit and keep employees: “That is the top management task.”
The situation in the apprenticeships shows how difficult it is. 50 to 60 companies in the association train regularly, says Jenz Otto, the vti managing director. Most recently, they offered 180 apprenticeships. Of course, almost a third of them have not been filled for years. Companies and associations are making every effort to change this. The Otex boss is regularly present at training fairs together with young employees, offers internships, talks to interns personally about their experiences or even invites them to the company’s summer party to strengthen the bond. Whoever starts an apprenticeship is practically guaranteed a job – three and a half years in advance. The head of the company speaks of regular »trainee marketing«. The Chemnitz research institute offers a “backpack project” in which interested young people can experience the development of a backpack from the production of the fiber to the printing in a week’s vacation. It is unclear how successful the measures are. “There is no master plan,” says Nico Teutsch.
One factor that is likely to be critical to recruitment is pay. In the industry, people in the east still usually pay less than in the west. Collective bargaining begins next week. The IG Metall demands a wage increase of six percent. A counter offer will only be discussed in the course of the week, says Otto. Of course, he previously referred to the enormous burden on companies due to the sharp rise in energy costs. The companies should not see much leeway.
This is also due to the generally gloomy prospects for the industry due to the war in Ukraine. “The fear is very great, the consequences are unforeseeable,” says Lindner. On the one hand, he refers to »nd« demand that the Ukraine and Belarus are »classic ready-made countries« with which there are »a whole series of business relationships«. On the other hand, Russia is “traditionally a very, very important market”, which had recently stabilized and even showed a slight upward trend. “Of course, it has come to a complete standstill at the moment,” says Lindner; it is unclear whether it will flourish again in the foreseeable future. The consequences could be existential for some association companies. According to the vti board, “we are very worried about whether they will survive”.