Results of the DEKRA Arbeit Group HR Report 2026

HR managers are incre­asingly turning to digital and inter­na­tional HR solutions

The day-to-day work of HR depart­ments in German companies has changed signi­fi­cantly since our previous report in 2022. Numerous global and economic challenges are making employee planning much more difficult. This makes modern, flexible, and inter­na­tional HR solutions all the more crucial, and these are becoming incre­asingly popular among our customers. These are the findings of the DEKRA Arbeit Group HR Report 2026, which is based on an anonymous online survey of more than 100 HR decis­ion­makers in Germany.

General personnel situation and employee forecast for 2026

Despite the tense economic situation, the general employee situation among sur-vey parti­ci­pants in 2025 was predo­mi­nantly stable (37.7 percent) or even slightly incre­asing (27.7 percent). Nevert­heless, around 86 percent of companies report a negative impact on their internal personnel develo­pment due to increased energy, raw material, and delivery costs. This is closely followed by negative effects due to a conti­nuing shortage of skilled workers and appli­cants, which was clearly noticeable in around eight out of ten companies (81.4 percent). It is therefore no surprise that in these challenging times, temporary work, as a flexible staffing solution, con-tinues to be highly relevant for just under 41 percent of companies. For around 31 percent of companies, commercial temporary staffing was even a very valuable or, in 11.9 percent of cases, an extremely important personnel factor in 2025.

Digital trans­for­mation in HR

In addition to individual employee develo­pment on site, we also asked HR manag-ers about their own level of digita­lization in HR. The results show a clear increase in the use of modern digital appli­cation tools and an incre­asingly positive assessment of them. Even though around 62 percent of companies still rate their own digital progress as average, one in five HR managers sees this as a very positive develo­pment. This is parti­cu­larly true with regard to new AI appli­ca­tions in everyday HR work. More than half of those surveyed now speak of positive (40.6 percent) or even extremely positive future options (14.9 percent), which, compared to the re-sults in 2022, conveys an effective upward trend.

Inter­na­tional exchange of skilled workers as an economic and success factor

According to our survey, personnel develo­p­ments and forecasts regarding the employment of foreign workers from EU and non-EU countries also paint a clearly upward overall picture. More than half of our client companies (52 percent) stated that they employed at least 15 percent EU workers in the previous year. In almost one in three companies, this figure was even higher than 50 percent. The situation is not quite as strong, but still shows a similar upward trend, when it comes to personnel from non-EU countries. After all, almost 22 percent of companies report that this inter­na­tional employee group accounts for more than 15 percent of their work-force. And the forecasts for both HR target groups continue to show an upward trend in the medium to long term.

“The findings of our DEKRA Arbeit Group HR Report 2026 not only confirm our day-to-day experience with our client companies, but also paint a very clear and valuable picture of the future of our national labor market,” says Suzana Bernhard, Vice President of the DEKRA Arbeit Group. “Both the growing demand for flexible, digital, and AI-supported HR services and the proportion of urgently needed additional skilled workers from all over the world have been clearly evident to us for some time and are also part of our realigned portfolio strategy.” However, the reasons for this lie not only in the current tense global economic situation with con-stantly changing production, delivery, and trade condi­tions. Purely national factors such as demographic change and domestic policy requi­re­ments also have a lasting impact on ongoing develo­p­ments in the human resources industry.

Further details and content on these topics can be found in the complete edition of our DEKRA Arbeit Group HR Report 2026, which is available free of charge on our website as of today for viewing or downloading in German.