Skilled workers wanted, but young professionals forgotten: Skilled worker shortage despite good training? Why young talents are facing closed doors

University studies, internships, minimum wage? The difficult entry into the fashion industry

Less confidence, fewer opportunities: What fashion graduates can expect on the job market

The fashion industry needs qualified professionals – yet many young graduates still wonder whether they'll even find a suitable job after graduation. This apparent contradiction has several causes: weak demand, changes in retail and production, and high expectations for entry-level positions are all coinciding with a scarcity of suitable entry-level jobs. At the same time, companies may be holding back staff in the short term, even though they will be lacking experienced employees in the long run.

The extent of the uncertainty is illustrated by a reported trend among fashion school graduates: The percentage of respondents who considered it very likely they would find employment commensurate with their qualifications within a year fell from 35 percent in 2024 to 21 percent in 2026. These figures describe expectations, not the actual employment situation. However, they clearly demonstrate how fragile confidence in entering the workforce has become.

The skills shortage is not a widespread lack of all qualifications. It exists in specific professions, regions, and fields of activity – while graduates elsewhere may face intense competition and low salary prospects. Added to this are high housing costs, economic pressure on companies, and the changes brought about by digitalization and artificial intelligence. The following article explores why training does not automatically lead to suitable employment, how companies themselves contribute to the skills shortage, and what changes could actually help young talent.

The economy is calling for talent – ​​and leaving it standing at the door

The dwindling optimism of young professionals in the fashion industry points to a fundamental economic contradiction: While politicians and businesses have been warning of labor shortages for years, well-educated young professionals are experiencing a job market that by no means guarantees them suitable employment. This is not due to a single cause, but rather to the interplay of weak demand, changing business models, unequal qualification requirements, and a problematic approach to expectations.

The crucial question, therefore, is not simply whether Germany needs skilled workers. It is which companies demand which skills under which conditions – and who bears the costs when grand promises are not kept. An industry cannot constantly complain about a lack of young talent while simultaneously blocking the pathways through which these young people are supposed to develop into experienced professionals in the first place.

When confidence becomes the exception

The trend in expectations among fashion industry graduates reported for the years 2024 to 2026 is clear: In 2024, 35 percent considered it very likely that they would find employment matching their qualifications within one year of graduation. This figure dropped to 28 percent in 2025 and to just 21 percent in 2026. The proportion of particularly optimistic respondents thus declined by 14 percentage points within two years. Compared to the initial figure, this represents a decrease of 40 percent.

This series of figures, however, must be interpreted carefully. It describes a subjective assessment and only the most optimistic response category. The 21 percent figure does not imply that only one in five graduates actually finds a suitable job, nor that the remaining 79 percent become unemployed. The publicly available study description confirms a survey of over 5,000 graduates, recent graduates, and experienced professionals, but does not publish these individual figures or the size of the graduate subsample.

This trend remains relevant as a warning signal. People don't make their educational, job application, and life decisions solely based on future unemployment statistics. Even the mere expectation of poor prospects can lead them to consider changing careers, postponing financial decisions, or accepting a job below their qualifications. For employers, therefore, dwindling confidence is not just a communication problem; it can reduce the future pool of applicants.

An educational promise loses its effect

Those who began a relevant bachelor's degree in 2019 could certainly have seen the warnings about a skills shortage at the time as an encouragement. From this perspective, after a bachelor's degree, possibly a subsequent master's, and several internships, it seems contradictory to have to search for a job years later that offers barely more than the legal minimum wage.

Not every educational path leads to such an outcome. But even the possibility of a significant discrepancy between the effort invested in training and the professional rewards changes how a sector is perceived. Young people then not only question whether they personally made the right decisions, but also doubt the reliability of the institutions that suggested those decisions to them.

From an economic perspective, university studies are an investment. Their costs include living expenses, learning materials, tuition fees (if applicable), and, most importantly, lost income during the course of study. The expected return consists of better job prospects, higher earnings, and greater career mobility. If these expectations decline, the perceived return on education decreases.

This does not create an entitlement to a specific job. However, it does create a responsibility for honest communication. Universities, employers, and policymakers should distinguish between long-term staffing needs, current hiring intentions, and the opportunities offered by individual job profiles. Conflating these levels gives job seekers a sense of security that the job market cannot provide.

Why scarcity and unemployment coexist

The term "skills shortage" often suggests a uniform labor market where qualified people are generally scarce. In reality, this market consists of many sub-markets. An experienced pattern maker, a specialist in textile testing procedures, and a fashion management graduate are not interchangeable.

The Federal Employment Agency identified skills shortages in 157 occupational categories for 2025, compared to 163 in the previous year. Shortages remained particularly pronounced in nursing and healthcare professions, parts of the skilled trades, education, and professional transport. This does not, however, indicate a general labor shortage across all professions.

Another statistic illustrates the problem: In 2025, roughly half of the reported skilled job openings were for shortage occupations. At the same time, only about one in five unemployed skilled workers sought employment in such a field. Supply and demand, therefore, often do not match in terms of occupation, qualifications, or location.

For fashion graduates, this means that a shortage of nurses or electricians doesn't directly improve their own job prospects. Even within a single industry, staff shortages and surpluses of applicants can coexist. For example, retail positions might be difficult to fill, while many applicants compete for a limited number of design or brand communication roles. The overarching concept of shortage tends to obscure such discrepancies rather than explain them.

Demographics do not create job guarantees

The aging population remains a real economic challenge. By 2039, approximately 13.4 million people who were part of the working-age population in 2024 will have reached the age of 67. This corresponds to almost a third of the working-age population at that time.

However, a departing employee doesn't necessarily leave behind an unchanged position that is then filled by a newcomer. Companies can automate tasks, combine responsibilities, or outsource services. Some jobs disappear, while others with different requirements emerge.

Furthermore, an experienced manager cannot usually be directly replaced by a university graduate. Between the two lie on-the-job learning processes and often several intermediate career stages. These intermediate stages are precisely what is needed for demographic replacement to work at all.

Long-term shortages and short-term difficulties in entering the workforce are therefore not a logical contradiction. A company can know that it will lack experienced personnel in a few years and still impose a hiring freeze today. In the short term, this may be understandable. Strategically, however, it creates a risk: those who don't develop their young talent today cannot simply order their experience later.

The demand crisis is reaching the next generation

The fashion industry is not isolated from consumer trends. Clothing is one of those expenses that households can postpone if they perceive their financial situation as uncertain. A jacket can be worn longer, a purchase can be delayed until the end of the season, or replaced by a cheaper offer.

In 2025, the German clothing retail sector sold goods worth approximately €57.14 billion across all sales channels, compared to €56.54 billion in the previous year. This corresponds to nominal growth of roughly one percent. Without taking price developments into account, no corresponding growth in sales volume can be inferred.

What's crucial for hiring decisions isn't just revenue, but the profit remaining after costs. A survey of business owners illustrates just how tight this margin can be: taking imputed costs into account, roughly half of the brick-and-mortar clothing retailers surveyed reported a negative operating result for 2025.

Such a survey is not a complete census of all companies. However, it plausibly explains why young talent is met with reluctance. When a company is struggling to remain profitable, additional positions are often created later than hoped. The crisis then manifests itself not first in layoffs, but in opportunities that never arise.

Not every fashion brand grows with the brand

The impact is also evident on the industrial side. Industry statistics for August 2026 show 60,735 employees in the recorded textile and clothing sector, 4.4 percent fewer than in the same month of the previous year. Of these, 40,597 worked in the textile industry and 20,138 in the clothing industry.

The distinction is important. Industrial textile manufacturing, clothing production, wholesale, retail, brand management, and digital platforms represent different parts of the value chain. Therefore, the aforementioned industry figures do not describe all jobs in the fashion industry.

For an economic assessment, a distinction must also be made between consumer-oriented and industrial applications. A company producing technical textiles may be more dependent on its commercial customers than on private clothing consumption. Therefore, employment prospects do not depend solely on whether consumers continue to buy clothing.

For graduates, this leads to an uncomfortable realization: a brand's recognition says little about how many suitable positions its business model can sustain in the long term. Conversely, less visible companies in materials development, quality assurance, or specialized applications can offer interesting opportunities. What matters is the economic position within the value chain, not just public attention.

Online growth redistributes opportunities

Structural change is further shifting employment opportunities between sales channels and corporate groups. In 2025, online sales accounted for approximately 44.2 percent of revenue in the fashion and accessories market, compared to 43.1 percent the previous year. Online sales in this segment grew by 2.8 percent.

This shows a further shift, but not an unlimited boom that could automatically compensate for all losses in other sales channels. When revenues migrate from many decentralized businesses to a few digital providers, the organization of work changes.

Data analytics, digital inventory management, logistics, and technical operations can then become more important. At the same time, not every job lost in brick-and-mortar retail needs to be replaced by a corresponding position in the same location. Centralized business models can combine growth with a different personnel structure.

For young professionals, the general observation that fashion will continue to be purchased is therefore insufficient. What matters is where the value creation takes place, which activities remain there, and which skills companies develop themselves. An industry can remain a large sales market and still lose certain entry-level career opportunities.

Companies are cutting corners on the future

New employees initially represent not only additional capacity for companies, but also an investment. They require training, feedback, and tasks that allow them to grow. Experienced employees must dedicate time to this. Under economic pressure, these initially difficult-to-measure expenses come under increased scrutiny and need to be justified.

This can create an entry trap. Companies demand professional experience because they want to limit risks and training costs. However, graduates need an initial qualified position to gain precisely this experience. Internships can ease the transition, but they are not a permanent substitute for regular entry-level positions with responsibility and development opportunities.

For individual companies, it may seem advantageous in the short term to poach fully trained and proven specialists from other firms. However, if many employers act this way, too few will invest in building their future workforce.

An industry can thus exacerbate its future skills shortage. The most credible response to concerns about a lack of young talent would therefore not be the next employer recruitment campaign, but a verifiable number of actually filled entry-level positions. Those who need young talent must be prepared to turn potential into professional experience.

When education is not financially viable

Since January 2026, the statutory minimum wage has been €13.90 gross per hour. Based on a simplified calculation of 40 hours per week and 52 weeks per year, this equates to approximately €2,409 gross per average month.

This figure does not represent typical starting salaries in the fashion industry. It serves as a benchmark for what an income close to the minimum wage means for full-time work. The crucial question concerns the gap between this minimum and a job that requires several years of study, specialized expertise, and practical experience.

If this gap remains small, the promise of upward economic mobility through education becomes less convincing. The problem then is not the minimum wage, but a potentially disappointing return on additional qualifications.

For companies, a degree alone is not sufficient grounds for a higher salary. What matters is the productive contribution a job makes. However, this does not justify arbitrarily low wages. If a business model can only finance qualified work slightly above the legal minimum wage, its profitability, productivity, and pricing must also be examined.

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Housing costs limit professional freedom

The quality of an entry-level job offer isn't solely determined by the gross salary. A position might appear attractive on paper, but leave little financial leeway after rent, commuting costs, and living expenses. This becomes particularly problematic if a job requires relocation.

In 2025, students living independently spent an average of 54 percent of their disposable household income on housing. For the general population, the corresponding figure was 24 percent. While these figures cannot be directly extrapolated to all young professionals, they do illustrate the financial starting point for a portion of future graduates.

This makes entering the workforce a matter of social selection. Those who can rely on family support have more leeway for a longer job search, an additional internship, or relocation. Those without this safety net may sooner have to accept unrelated or lower-skilled work.

An industry can lose talent this way, even if their professional qualifications aren't the real issue. Good recruitment policies must therefore also consider the material conditions under which performance can be demonstrated. The demand for flexibility is of little use if the necessary flexibility is financially unaffordable.

AI is changing the first career stage

Artificial intelligence adds a technological dimension to the uncertainty. Tasks that are traditionally the learning experience for new professionals can now be partially supported by technology: initial text drafts, standardized evaluations, preliminary research, or variations of visual concepts.

The International Labour Organization classifies roughly a quarter of global employment as belonging to occupations with some potential for change through generative AI. In high-income countries, this figure rises to around 34 percent. These figures do not represent projected job losses, but rather describe the potential impact on various occupations.

For the fashion industry, a particular risk lies in access to experience. While simple tasks are increasingly supported by technology, the need for human judgment does not disappear. Companies must, however, reorganize how young employees acquire this judgment.

Combining only experienced employees with AI tools might lead to short-term efficiency gains, but could weaken a company's talent pool in the long run. A more sensible approach would be to introduce newcomers to quality control, customer understanding, data evaluation, and responsibility earlier on. This requires deliberately designed learning roles, rather than the assumption that digital tools render vocational training obsolete.

Future challenges require sustainable business models

Despite the challenges, the fashion industry remains a sector with a significant need for change. Circularity, material knowledge, inventory management, traceability, and digital product data offer starting points for skilled work. However, a socially desirable task does not automatically translate into a financially viable job.

One example is the handling of unsold goods. Since July 19, 2026, large companies in the EU have been generally prohibited from destroying unsold clothing, clothing accessories, and shoes; statutory exceptions remain in place. For medium-sized companies, the corresponding application is generally planned from 2030.

This creates requirements for inventory planning, documentation, and alternative uses. Whether additional jobs are created depends on how companies organize these tasks.

The same applies to the digital product passport. The fourth quarter of 2027 is currently planned as the adoption date for the textile-specific legislation. This does not imply a blanket obligation for all textiles from the beginning of 2027. Nevertheless, the direction is relevant for those entering the profession: Combinations of textile expertise, data understanding, and practical implementation can be valuable. Another certificate without practical application is insufficient, as is the mere assertion of a new future profession.

Merkel and Zetsche in retrospect

The credibility crisis is linked to the memory of prominent political and economic expectations. In 2015, Angela Merkel linked her refugee policy to the confidence that the associated challenges could be overcome. The then Daimler CEO, Dieter Zetsche, presented successful integration as a potential foundation for further economic growth.

Zetsche acknowledged that not every refugee is a highly qualified engineer, mechanic, or entrepreneur. His position at the time can be critically examined, but should not be retrospectively reinterpreted as a calculated guarantee.

The main, and justified, criticism lies in the handling of potential, effort, and time horizon. Motivation can be an important prerequisite for economic integration. However, it does not replace language skills, education, childcare, legal clarity, or actually available jobs.

The question of responsibility should therefore be posed more concretely than through personal insults. Which apprenticeships were created? Which employment opportunities followed the publicly announced promises? Which obstacles were underestimated? And why were long-term expectations for skilled workers communicated so frequently as if they were a general guarantee of success?

Former top executives must be held accountable for their statements. However, to attribute today's shortage of young talent solely to their positions at the time would be an explanation that does not do justice to the economic changes in the fashion industry.

Migration demands an honest assessment

The blanket assertion that no skilled workers have arrived, but rather that only people have immigrated into the social security system, is incompatible with the available labor market data. At the end of 2025, approximately 471,000 people from non-EU countries were registered with a temporary residence permit for the purpose of employment.

This is a population figure, not an annual immigration figure and not a figure exclusively for academic professionals. Immigration under EU freedom of movement is not included.

The development of asylum seekers who arrived in 2015 is also varied. Their employment rate in 2024 was 64 percent, compared to 70 percent for the general population. Of those employed in this group, 90 percent were in jobs subject to social security contributions. The employment rate was 76 percent for men, but only 35 percent for women.

This shows significant progress, but also a continuing large gap in women's labor force participation. Approximately half of employed refugees were working at a skilled worker, specialist, or expert level seven to eight years after their arrival.

An objective assessment must acknowledge both sides: A significant portion has found employment, while career advancement and financial independence remain unequally distributed. Neither claiming complete failure nor declaring all problems resolved does justice to this finding.

Employment does not mean free of charge

For an economic assessment, it is not sufficient to look solely at employment rates. Income, working hours, and household size all influence whether a household can support itself independently. Conversely, receiving benefits does not necessarily mean that no gainful employment is undertaken at all.

For asylum seekers who arrived in 2015, the median gross monthly income of full-time employees in 2023 was €2,675, approximately 70 percent of the median income of all full-time employees. In the same year, 34 percent of the individuals of working age in the study lived in households receiving benefits under the German Social Code II.

These figures refer to 2023 and should not be considered current quotas for all immigrants in 2026. A complete fiscal balance would need to consider revenues and expenditures over longer periods: taxes and social security contributions as well as education, housing, integration, and future benefit entitlements.

The credible criticism therefore focuses on persistently low incomes, insufficient qualifications, and avoidable barriers to integration. It is not strengthened by ignoring verifiable employment or lumping different immigrant groups together into a single category.

Young talents are not opponents

The difficult situation of fashion school graduates does not prove that immigrant workers have deprived them of their opportunities. For such a connection to be established, it would have to be shown that the same jobs, skills, and regions are actually affected, and that other factors do not better explain the situation.

Furthermore, the labor market is not a static set of jobs simply distributed across different population groups. Additional workers can enable production, services, and demand. At the same time, competition can arise in specific jobs when skills are similar and demand or investment does not grow accordingly.

For a viable strategy, Germany therefore needs neither a dichotomy between domestic talent and immigrant skilled workers, nor the assertion that immigration can solve every staffing problem. What is needed is education, training, higher labor force participation, productive investments, and targeted immigration.

Humanitarian protection measures and labor market-oriented recruitment of skilled workers pursue different immediate goals. Equating the two in communication creates expectations that increase the likelihood of disappointment in both areas.

The risks affect the youngest

The perception that established decision-makers are better protected than the younger generation touches upon an important distribution mechanism. Those with stable income, professional experience, property, or savings are better able to weather periods of economic downturn than someone just about to enter the workforce.

This does not require speculation about the private wealth of individuals. What is crucial is the unequal ability to absorb risks.

For those starting their careers, it's not just a matter of a few months' delay. A study using German employment history data, based on 2022 data, estimated the cumulative income disadvantage of starting a career during a typical recession at approximately six percent over the first 15 years. This is a historical estimate, not a forecast for today's fashion school graduates.

If economic adjustment is achieved primarily through companies hiring fewer young people, then young people will bear a portion of the crisis's costs without having benefited from the prosperous years beforehand. This is the crux of the generational question. It concerns not only income, but also access to experience, housing, and financial independence.

Protest as an economic warning signal

The nationwide youth protests of October 31, 2026, highlighted demands for better education, affordable housing, social security, and greater participation in decision-making. These demands can be understood economically as a call for reliable conditions for independent living.

Nevertheless, a deteriorating industry outlook should not be used to portray a generation as entirely without hope. In a representative survey of 14- to 17-year-olds conducted in autumn 2025, 80 percent were optimistic about their personal future, but only 44 percent were optimistic about the future of Germany.

This age group is not the same as fashion industry graduates. However, the difference illustrates why a distinction must be made between personal agency, social trust, and concrete career prospects.

The combination of personal ambition and institutional skepticism is particularly noteworthy. Those who have confidence in themselves but less trust in politics and corporations may not become passive. They might change industries, move abroad, or become self-employed. For employers, this loss of trust can therefore become a significant competitive disadvantage.

What employers need to change now

A convincing answer begins with verifiable entry paths. Companies should specify which positions are actually suitable for graduates, what knowledge is required, and what skills are taught within the company.

A so-called junior position that already requires extensive professional experience does not solve the shortage of young talent. It merely gives a more favorable name to an experienced position.

Compensation and development also need more transparency. A tightly calculated starting offer can be understandable if it is linked to serious training, clear learning objectives, and reliable salary increases. Without this perspective, the request to first gain experience remains a one-sided promise.

Closer cooperation with universities, joint training programs for smaller companies, and projects in which young employees address concrete economic problems would also be beneficial. Developing young talent should not be seen as a charitable gimmick, but rather as an investment in productivity and organizational renewal.

Their success can be measured by skills development, acquisitions, internal promotions, and the long-term retention of qualified employees. This would be more meaningful than the mere reach of an employer branding campaign.

Politics needs reliable measures of success

The political task is not to permanently preserve every existing job or to promise growth to every industry. It must create conditions under which profitable companies invest and career transitions remain manageable.

This includes functioning infrastructure, reliable administration, affordable housing, and an education system that doesn't delay changes for years.

Better performance monitoring would go beyond the number of university places, degrees awarded, or residence permits granted. Relevant factors would include the time until first employment commensurate with qualifications, the development of starting salaries, involuntary underemployment, and career advancement opportunities.

Public support should also have an additional, verifiable impact. Subsidizing hiring that was already planned would be unconvincing. More effective would be time-limited measures that demonstrably facilitate on-the-job training or improve the mobility of financially disadvantaged young professionals entering the workforce.

Youth policy would then not be a marginal issue, but a benchmark for economic policy decisions: Do they facilitate the establishment of an independent working life or do they merely postpone burdens to the future?

Credibility is established when starting a career

The fashion industry must simultaneously improve its profitability, develop new skills, and provide young people with access to practical experience. Not every career aspiration can lead to the desired position. An honest industry should be able to acknowledge this without downplaying the value of its training or the dedication of its graduates.

For young professionals, a viable future lies neither in false guarantees nor in blanket hopelessness. Broadly applicable skills can increase their flexibility: business acumen, textile expertise, data literacy, and the ability to critically apply technical tools.

However, this does not relieve employers of their responsibilities. Individual adjustments cannot replace company investments. Therefore, the real benchmark for politics and business is not the volume of their demands for more talent. It lies in what happens to the people who are already trained.

A society cannot promise young people a risk-free future. However, it should offer them an environment in which qualifications actually open doors – instead of becoming a ticket to a waiting list.

Xpert.Digital is a data-driven B2B industry hub led by Konrad Wolfenstein . The company acts as an external, quasi-in-house solution for industrial partners, closing operational gaps in marketing, content, and sales – without requiring additional resources on the client side.

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