Deutsche Bahn (DB) is redoubling efforts to persuade young people to join the railway.
Between now and 2020, DB needs to recruit between 7,000 and 8,000 new employees every year to get a grip on Germany’s own rail skills shortage. This has been brought on by the overall population decline and DB’s ageing workforce.
To attract a younger generation of rail workers, DB is embarking on a social media campaign which it hopes will reach out to aspiring engineers and train drivers.
At a careers event in October in Munich, DB showed off its new digital offering – virtual reality.
DB has produced a series of 360-degree films that when viewed through a VR headset allow students to see what it’s like to maintain DB’s high- speed fleet, work on the infrastructure or dispatch a train. DB sees it as an opportunity to demonstrate to young people the variety of careers on offer and show them what working in the rail industry is really like.
Moving around 5.6 million passengers throughout Germany every day takes one of the largest workforces in the global rail industry.
DB employs around 300,000 people worldwide, of which 194,000 are in Germany. As a result, DB is one of Germany’s largest training providers. In September 2014, 3,700 school leavers joined DB and every year the company offers around 300 intern places.
