Counteracting the shortage of skilled workers

In August, ten apprentices started their training at BENTELER Maschinenbau und Mechanical Engineering in Bielefeld. The company was able to fill all vacant training positions with suitable applicants. The search for the coming year is already beginning.

Salzburg/Bielefeld, August 21, 2023. "After the apprentice launch is before the next apprentice recruitment: we have come up with quite a few things to get young people excited about our company," says Manfred Böker, training manager at BENTELER Maschinenbau und Mechanical Engineering, a subsidiary of the international BENTELER Group. Together with his colleagues, he was active at job fairs, at the IHK speed dating and also at a trainee kicker event over the course of the year. "We are therefore even happier that our new trainees are now starting their careers with us. The commercial and technical training spectrum is very diverse: from industrial clerk, electronics technician to tool mechanic." Especially a "hidden champion" like BENTELER Maschinenbau in Bielefeld, a leader in the development and design of glass processing machines for more than 70 years, needs the most important resource in the innovation industry: qualified and motivated employees.

Promotion of trainees

An internationally active company like BENTELER Maschinenbau, which has been focusing on training and promoting young talent for many years, also faces the challenge of a shortage of skilled workers. Trainer Manfred Böker: "We encourage our trainees and bring them to top performance. And of course we also support them accordingly - during their training and later in their professional lives. With their outstanding performance, our trainees are regularly among the best in East Westphalia. This speaks for our trainees - and of course for our training as well. Many years of experience and a spirit of partnership and respect play a decisive role in this."

From trainee to manager: BENTELER Maschinenbau shows how it is done

Sabrina Lohmann is an example of a career "made by BENTELER Maschinenbau". She began her training as an industrial clerk in 2010. The now 35-year-old went her way step by step and full of commitment - all the way to becoming a manager. Still a rarity in the male-dominated mechanical engineering sector. "After my training, I started as a permanent clerk in the commercial processing department, the internal sales department at BENTELER. That was my start in the working world. In 2013, just one year later, I decided to study business administration alongside my job - in close consultation with the company," Sabrina Lohmann records in retrospect. In the meantime, she now has her training license herself - to train BENTELER's next managers.