Compared to the rest of Europe, Germany does not have enough employees with high quality education. A new study by Dresdner Bank shows that in terms of the percentage of employees with a degree, Germany ranks near the bottom in a comparison of 15 EU states. "Germany needs to do more to strengthen its ingenuity," says Michael Heise, Chief Economist of Dresdner Bank and Allianz. He believes that education is one of the most important means to tackle the lack of qualified employees.

Since 2000, Germany has fallen behind in intra-European education competition. The percentage of graduates among the workforce in this country only climbed by one percentage point to 28 percent, while countries such as the UK, Spain and the Netherlands saw their figures rise by up to six percentage points to reach 34 percent. Finland was the front-runner, with a graduate percentage of almost 40 percent.

Overall, Germany ranks just tenth in the Dresdner Bank study, which examined the 15 largest EU states, despite various efforts in its education system. In 2000, Germany ranked eighth and above the EU average. However, as a result of noticeable improvements in other European countries, the EU average has risen from 25 percent in 2000 to the current level of nearly 29 percent, thus surpassing the German figure.

"Given these findings, it is all the more worrying that only a fifth of 15-year-olds in Germany strive for a university education," states Allianz Chief Economist Heise. Today, Germany is already at a disadvantage: only in Greece, Poland, Austria, Italy and Portugal is the percentage of employees with tertiary qualifications (university degrees, qualifications from professional academies, Masters degrees, and PhDs) lower than in Germany.

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