Pro­mo­ting young talent and secu­ring skil­led workers

The Thu­rin­gian pho­to­nics indus­try curr­ently employs around 19,600 skil­led workers, almost 16,900 of whom work in indus­try and almost 2,700 in rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons. These include phy­si­cists and engi­neers, mathe­ma­ti­ci­ans, che­mists and com­pu­ter sci­en­tists, as well as skil­led workers in fields such as pre­cis­ion optics, mecha­tro­nics and phy­sics labo­ra­tory technicians. 

The pho­to­nics indus­try is expec­ting mode­rate sales growth in the coming years . This is also reflec­ted in the per­son­nel fore­casts: by the end of 2026, a total of almost 2,000 new posi­ti­ons will need to be fil­led through expan­sion and replacement.

At the same time, we are facing a mas­sive decline in the working-age popu­la­tion in Thu­rin­gia in the coming years. In addi­tion, the num­ber of gra­dua­tes in the rele­vant STEM sub­jects is stagnating.

To ensure that growth and inno­va­tion in our tech­no­logy sec­tor are not threa­tened by a lack of per­son­nel, there is a lot for com­pa­nies and us to do in the coming years. We set the course for this early on: Since its foun­da­tion, Opto­Net has been expli­citly com­mit­ted to recrui­ting skil­led workers at the loca­tion. For exam­ple, we have been sur­vey­ing com­pa­nies‹ requi­re­ments for skil­led workers every two years since 2001 in the Pho­to­nics Report, have suc­cessfully mana­ged our Opto­Net young talent pro­gram MASTER+ since 2010 and have regu­larly brought tog­e­ther the HR experts from our mem­ber com­pa­nies in the Skil­led Workers Working Group for seve­ral years. 

Our work con­cen­tra­tes on 3 main areas:

  • the pro­mo­tion of STEM edu­ca­tion and career gui­dance,
  • the recruit­ment of (inter­na­tio­nal) spe­cia­lists and
  • Fur­ther trai­ning for spe­cia­lists and career changers

Pro­mo­tion of STEM edu­ca­tion and career guidance

As Opto­Net, we are active from nur­sery school to career ori­en­ta­tion and want to get child­ren and young peo­ple inte­res­ted in optics and the like. We show what is pos­si­ble with pho­to­nic solu­ti­ons, what light can do and in which pro­fes­si­ons you can work on the chal­lenges of the future. 

Acti­vi­ties

  • Opto­Net-Kitasuit­case
    We use simple expe­ri­ments to get pre­school and pri­mary school child­ren inte­res­ted in the phe­no­mena of light in a fun way.
  • MINT Fes­ti­val
    We are invol­ved in the orga­niza­tion team of the MINT Fes­ti­val, which gets child­ren and young peo­ple from the region inte­res­ted in sci­ence every two years.
  • MINT-BiT pro­ject
    In the Twin­ning pro­gram, our mem­bers can pro­vide prac­ti­cal insights into STEM pro­fes­si­ons, spe­ci­fi­cally pro­mote young talent and inspire young peo­ple for STEM.
  • Career ori­en­ta­tion
    We work actively with regio­nal schools, sup­port tea­chers with career gui­dance offers and help our mem­ber com­pa­nies to orga­nize their school partnerships.

(Inter­na­tio­nal) junior staff and specialists

Our mis­sion is not only to keep stu­dents in the region, but also to actively sup­port the immi­gra­tion of skil­led workers to Thuringia.

Acti­vi­ties

  • MASTER+ Pro­gram
    Moti­va­ted stu­dents are given the oppor­tu­nity to get to know our mem­ber com­pa­nies and various career paths in our one-year young talent program.
  • Loca­tion marketing
    We are active regio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally at trade fairs and events. As a mem­ber of the advi­sory board of the Wel­come Cen­ter Jena andthe jury of the i‑Work Busi­ness Awards, we are com­mit­ted tocul­tu­ral diver­sity and attrac­tive loca­tion marketing. 
  • Equal oppor­tu­ni­ties and diversity
    The low pro­por­tion of women in STEM degree pro­gramsis also reflec­ted in the pho­to­nics indus­try (26%). In order to increase the attrac­ti­ve­ness of the indus­try, espe­ci­ally among women, we see it as our task to make inno­va­tive achie­ve­ments by women more visible. 
  • Working group ›Spe­cia­lists
    We offer mana­gers and HR mana­gers from the Opto­Net mem­ber­ship a regu­lar plat­form for fur­ther trai­ning and infor­mal exchange.

Fur­ther trai­ning for spe­cia­lists and career changers

We design and orga­nize a wide range of fur­ther trai­ning cour­ses for the pro­fes­sio­nal and per­so­nal deve­lo­p­ment of our members.

Acti­vi­ties

  • JENA Optics Colloquium
    We orga­nize the regu­lar for­mat around new tech­no­lo­gies in pho­to­nics, which is aimed at inte­res­ted par­ties from rese­arch, busi­ness and education.
  • Spe­cia­list work­shops and tech­no­logy formats
    We offer tech­no­logy-ori­en­ted trai­ning cour­ses, e.g. ›Illu­mi­na­tion optics‹, ›Opti­cal coa­tings‹ and ›Opti­cal design‹ in Ger­man and Eng­lish and also act in accordance with the cur­rent topic requests of our members.
  • Fur­ther trai­ning in the area of per­son­nel and orga­niza­tio­nal development
    We offer a wide range of cour­ses, from new work topics to employer bran­ding and tra­di­tio­nal employ­ment law.
  • Fur­ther trai­ning on cross-cut­ting topics
    We offer annual trai­ning on export con­trol for the most important tar­get mar­kets in our indus­try. Qua­lity manage­ment, sus­taina­bi­lity and data pro­tec­tion are other topics that we tailor to our mem­bers in one-day trai­ning formats. 
  • Spe­cial con­di­ti­ons for boo­kings with our part­ner networks
    We actively pro­mote trai­ning offers from our part­ners where our mem­bers bene­fit from spe­cial con­di­ti­ons. (e.g. at Sili­con Sax­ony, the net­works of Optec­Net Deutsch­land or Pho­to­nics Austria) 

Would you like to find out more about our work?

Natalja Baj­kov­ski
Pro­mo­ting young talent & secu­ring skil­led workers

+49 (0) 3641 327 92 95
ed.anej-tenotpo@iksvokjab.ajlatan

Lin­ke­dIn profile