PreModIE - Predictive Model of Industrial Employability

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Peter Letmathe; Professor Dr.-Ing. Robert Heinrich Schmitt
• Subject Area: Production Systems, Operations Management, Quality Management and Factory Planning ; Accounting and Finance ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 406934476

The German labour market currently faces three major challenges that will affect the labour situation in the future: on-going globalisation, digitalisation of production systems and demographic change. Demographic change in particular, is a major threat to the German industry. One promising approach to address these issues is to improve the industrial employability of working age people (age 16-67). These circumstances are especially interesting in the current context of increasing numbers of immigrating refugees as the general need for adaptive employees and specialists will increase while the supply of German working age people continues to decrease. In order to approach these challenges, the goal of the current research proposal is to develop and employ a predictive model of industrial employability (PMIE) that can be used to systematically analyse employability for the secondary sector. The following research questions will be addressed: 1. What is industrial employability and how can it be measured? 2. Which factors precede industrial employability and how can they be measured? 3. What are theinteractions between these factors? The work programme is divided into two phases. During the first phase the PMIE is developed. This development requires the operationalisation of the dependent variable (industrial employability) and the identification and operationalisation of the relevant independent variables that might predict industrial employability. The second phase consists mainly of applying thenewly developed model in order to investigate the statistical relationships between the variables and to test its practicability. The proposal emphasises the interdisciplinary study of industrial employability with a focus on empirical validation. The combination ofeconomics, industrial engineering, and psychology enables an investigation of employability on the micro-, meso-, and macro-level and provides a holistic framework for analysing industrial employability. It is meant to support society and organisations infacing the challenges that result from the on-going technological and demographic changes. The model is supposed to contribute to the following purposes: a) to understand the influencing factors and mechanisms that determine industrial employability; b) to develop a framework that allows to measure individual employability for the future labour market of the secondary sector with the aim to align the secondary sector needs and what working age people offer; c) to identify specific factors which improve industrial employability of older employees by preparing them for the future work environment; d) to analyse factors which are relevant for enhancing the industrialemployability of people with a migration background; e) to provide empirically founded suggestions for labour market policy in terms of organisational and societal responsibility taking.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants