Our “Match Talent for Women” initiative was recently presented in an article by “Die Welt”.
The aim of “Match Talent for Women” is to support migrant women in Germany to gain access to government-funded education. This allows them to (re)enter the workforce, fulfil their career dreams and become active and independent members of society. We do not only support women in obtaining Bildungsgutscheine (educational vouchers), “Match Talent for Women” also looks to build a strong community of women. This community provides support along with empowering its members to gain independence through a new career.
To reach our goals of supporting, “Match Talent for Women” created a few guidelines. Firstly, to understand the needs of women in Germany and check if our programmes fulfil the career expectations of female expats in Germany. Secondly, to make sure that everyone is aware of the opportunities, we run various info sessions presenting the options. In addition to that we have partnered with some important stakeholders, in order to ensure that we completely understand the migrant scene in Germany, that we are seen as a trusted organisation and that we are visible to the migrants seeking help.
“Die Welt” has published an article, which talks about one of our alumna, her journey with “Match Talent for Women”, and how the STEM sector in Germany looks like for female migrants.
Sana Mansoor came from Pakistan to Germany three years ago and has just finished her second master's degree at the Berlin School of Business and Innovation. Nowadays she is working in an international firm as a financial advisor.
Skilled workers like Sana Mansoor are urgently needed in Germany. According to the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft, the proportion of unfilled vacancies in the STEM sector (science, Technology, engineering and mathematics) is 38%. In digitalization professions, it is currently as high as 63 percent. Three groups of people in particular could support to reduce the skilled labour gap: immigrants, older people and women.
Kasia Wozniak is responsible for the support of immigrant women at our "Match Talent" initiative. "We support international talent in Germany, advise on state-subsidised further training and which professions can offer stable employment in Germany. More and more women with an interest in IT professions are turning to us. In Germany, professions such as computer scientists, engineers and administrators are still very male-dominated. In other countries, a stronger change can be observed here." says Wozniak. The women come mostly from India, Pakistan, Mexico and EU countries.
We recently asked several hundred female migrants about their desired fields of work. Data analysis and science came in first place (14.7 percent), followed by IT and project management (12.4 percent) and finance with 11.6 percent. "There is a lot of potential here for the German labour market," says Wozniak. However, the need for interfaces that provide advice and support are still large.
Requested educational programs:
| 1. | Data analytics & science | 14,7 % |
| 2. | IT & project management | 12,4 % |
| 3. | Finance | 11,6 % |
| 4. | Marketing | 7,6 % |
| 5. | HR | 4,4 % |
| 6. | Web Development /UX & UI | 4,0 % |
| 7. | Renewable energy | 3,1 % |
| 8. | Innovation/Digitalization | 1,8 % |
| 9. | Sales | 0,4 % |
| 10. | Other | 23,6 % |
The study reinforces the large interest that international women have on STEM courses in Germany. This finding shows that the group around international women could flatten the skilled labour gap in this area.
Sana Mansoor is one great example of that. Right now, she is working as a senior counsellor. In addition to learning German, she has completed two further training courses: as a specialist in anti-money laundering and in online product management, where she learned how to program products in the backend, among other things. Her dream for the future is to found her own Start-up that focuses on financial advice for companies.