The electric vehicle lab at the Don Bosco Industrial Training Institute in central Mumbai. Photo: Srivastava
Germany is increasingly looking outwards to find skilled workers to fill its green labour gap, especially to India. Joint collaborations aim to tackle a critical challenge faced by both nations: securing a skilled workforce capable of supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy. While both countries see a potential for India’s young population to contribute to their labour markets, young workers have not shown themselves too enthusiastic about the prospect of taking up green jobs.
Since he was a child, Mohammad Atif Salim Khan watched his father lug a pile of plastic and jute wicker mats on his shoulder, selling them door to door in a central Mumbai suburb, returning home every evening with his back aching. Atif hoped for his career to be vastly different: he wished to work with cars, often playing a solo game of spotting the latest models on Mumbai’s busy roads on his walk back from school.
The 20-year-old is now learning German, and has his eyes on the “land of Porsche, Audi and BMW”. He learned to fix both traditional cars and electric vehicles, his aspiration is made possible by a new collaboration between India and Germany to build a green workforce for the future climate-friendly economy.
Atif is part of what many leaders hope will be a solution to a growing problem: a shortage of skilled labour to carry out the transition.
The global demand for green talent grew twice as quickly as supply between 2023 and 2024—with demand increasing by 11.6% and supply by 5.6%, according to the business-focused social network LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Report 2024.
The report predicted that by 2030, “one in five jobs will lack the green talent to fill it” and by 2050, “this gap will balloon to one in two jobs”.
India, the world’s most populous nation and home to the largest number of people in the working age group, is seen as a fix to the skills problem.
Green skills collaboration
“Countries in the Global North are increasingly recognising that labour shortages are a huge bottleneck that they need to solve to meet their climate goals,” Samuel Huckstep of the Center for Global Development (CGD) said.
This includes Germany, whose ageing population is steadily widening the skilled shortage gap. Experts estimate the country will require an additional 350,000 skilled workers for its energy transition by 2030 in order to plan, build and operate renewable power and hydrogen production facilities. The country also faces shortages in its railway sector, as half of the operational workers are expected to retire by 2030.
