Chemnitz_zieht_an_Magazin_2024_englisch

“BUT ABOVE ALL, I WANT
TO MAKE MY CONTRIBU-
TION TO THE GERMAN
ECONOMY.“
He is one of around 300,000 people who
have turned their backs on the country
since then, he says. “The political situation,
exorbitant prices, hardly any jobs
and corruption – the desire for change
grows automatically.” Yet the mechanical
engineer had a reasonably secure job at
Stadler’s location in Minsk: “However, the
number of employees there has more
than halved since the war in Ukraine
began, from 1,500 to 600.” Alexander
finally took the initiative and wanted to
make a new start in Germany. Why here
of all places? “My wife’s sister has been
working as a doctor in Germany for
some time. We visited often and got to
know and love the country on numerous
city tours.” But instead of simply moving
to one of the Stadler Group’s German
locations, Alexander initially made about
300 applications – without success. “In
most cases, my lack of German language
skills was an obstacle,” he says.
Then, in the summer of 2022, he got the
chance to move to the Chemnitz location,
where the language barrier didn’t
matter much. “We work with the same
system worldwide. This makes integration
much easier for specialists from
other international Stadler locations,”
explains HR Manager Christin Walther.
“To break down the language barrier
over time, there is a free in-house
German course once a week. On the
other hand, our German employees get
the opportunity to develop their English
skills.” In this way, internationalisation
at the Chemnitz location is gradually
progressing, which naturally makes
sense given the worldwide success of
the Stadler Group. The company has
been building rail vehicles for customers
all over the world for over 80 years and
has been the market leader in the field
of alternative drive technologies such as
electric and hydrogen drives for some
years now. This year alone, orders have
come from the USA, Italy, Lithuania and
Norway, among other countries. Stadler
maintains a flexible team of around 180
engineers and developers at its Chemnitz
location. Its employees provide engineering
services to the Stadler Group
in the areas of construction, calculations,
electronics, pneumatics and multi-body
simulation. Alexander works as an
installation planner and is responsible
for the electrical cabling inside the rail
vehicles. His Chemnitz colleagues have
always been very helpful right from the
start. “We even received a washing machine
from a colleague. We were quite
surprised that flats in Germany are usually
let unfurnished. In Belarus, it’s the
other way around,” laughs Alexander.
To further strengthen the international
team’s cohesion, monthly get-togethers
such as outdoor outings, picnics or rubber
dinghy tours are regular
fixtures on the calendar.
In the meantime, Alexander
feels he has found his place
and now hopes that his wife
will also soon find a job as
a civil engineer. “It’ll work
out,” he says confidently
because he has had a lot
of practice in waiting. In
Belarus, he waited weeks
for a positive decision from
the German embassy. In
Germany, it took another
CHRISTIN WALTHER
five months for his studies to be recognised
and a further six months to find a
suitable day-care place for his daughter.
Opening a bank account also proved to
be extremely complicated due to the
international sanctions against Belarus.
However, Alexander is not somebody
who has regrets about his past. On the
contrary, he prefers to look ahead: “I
want to grow old here,” he says with
assurance, and he adds: “But above
all, I want to make my contribution to
the German economy. I want to give
something back.” Christin Walther has
some advice for companies that want to
improve their efforts to hire skilled workers
from abroad: “Be open about it and
put your fear of trying something new
to one side. There are numerous points
of contact who support companies in
this area. In any case, we have had very
good experiences with international
skilled workers.”
WEITERE INFOS:
Stadler Chemnitz GmbH
chemnitz.jobs/stadler
Our international skilled workers
come from:
Deutschland, Belarus, Spain, India, Iran, Morocco, Syria,
Tunisia, Ukraine and the USA.
Applications in German, English or Russian to:
Christin.Walther@stadlerrail.com
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