German automakers' expansion plans hit by shortage of engineers

BMW and Porsche are predicting record sales for their cars this year, but are vying to find enough engineers to make them.

According to KHABAR KHODRO, An aging workforce and declining enrollment in technical studies caused the shortfall of available engineers in Germany to rise to an all-time high of about 77,000 last month, according to the VDI German engineering association.BMW aims to hire 800 people at its factory in Leipzig, as part of a 400 million-euro ($577 million) expansion for the production of the i3 electric city car and the i8 hybrid super car.Porsche is recruiting more than 1,000 workers for its plant about 17 km away, where it plans to add the new Cajun compact sport-utility vehicle."Until about two years ago we had hardly heard of companies in the region struggling to find skilled staff," Leipzig Mayor Burkhard Jung said in an interview. "But the scarcity of engineers appears to have become an issue now."The shortage may threaten the competitiveness of BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen and Daimler as they expand and boost development of electric vehicles.

. They're also partnering with universities to ensure access to new talent and stepping up in-house training programs to retrain staff on electric-powered vehicles.