Youth Development is Not a Nice-to-Have - It's Our Future

How can we inspire young people for crafts and show them real perspectives? In cooperation with Handwerkskammer Cottbus, we did exactly that and offered a practice-oriented orientation day for upper-level students from the OSZ in Cottbus.

Shortage of Skilled Workers in Crafts
The German Mittelstand, especially crafts, faces an acute problem: Fewer and fewer young people decide to pursue training in crafts.

The reasons are diverse
• Academicization and societal focus on degree programs
• Lack of visibility of modern craft professions and career paths
• Outdated ideas about the profession
• Lack of practice-oriented career orientation in schools

The consequences are clearly noticeable:
• Thousands of unfilled training positions
• Loss of know-how through age-related departures
• Growth obstacles and declining innovation capacity

Because youth development is important to us as a regionally rooted, Mittelstand company and because we at the BBF Group believe in what we do, we want to inspire young people early on for crafts and show that this career path can be both future-proof and personally enriching.

As part of the project day with the upper-level students, we therefore presented two of our total of six company locations:

📍 BBF Gebäudetechnik GmbH in Luckau
📍 BBF Tiefbau GmbH in Freiwalde/ Bersteland

On-site, the students received direct insights into craft and commercial professions, learned about our daily work, and were able to ask questions to employees. Our HR department also provided insights into the topic of recruiting, application processes, and addressed the opportunities that the shortage of skilled workers today offers for young career starters!

Courage for Entrepreneurship
To conclude, Raúl Comesaña Macias, Managing Director of BBF Bau GmbH, inspired with an inspiring speech on the topic of entrepreneurship. He spoke openly about his own path, about responsibility, and about the mindset that entrepreneurship requires. His appeal to the young people: "Have courage, try yourselves out, and gather experiences. Failure is also part of learning – what's important is that you go your way."

With much applause and exciting closing conversations, a project day full of insights, impulses, and inspiration came to an end. We thank all participants, especially the colleagues at the locations, for their openness and commitment. If we were able to ignite a spark of enthusiasm for crafts in the young people at the end of this day, we have achieved a lot!