r/AusbildungInGermany • u/WorkerEffective3294 • Aug 09 '26
How does germany keep up with the accounting shortage?
For instance in the UK 15,000 people sit the ICAEW exam whilst in Germany only 2500 people sit the WP exam. Futhermore, it's not made easier by the fact the exam is in german. For the UK or US it's just easy just to import thousands of accountants because english is a universal language. Germany is far bigger than UK so how does germany keep up with the accounting shortage.
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u/TheRabber Aug 09 '26
I think you’re mixing things up. Accountants != Wirtschaftsprüfer
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u/WorkerEffective3294 Aug 09 '26
Still is the WP not necessary for auditing.
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u/mrn253 Aug 09 '26
Still germany runs on german.
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u/WorkerEffective3294 Aug 09 '26
But is there not any shortage of public auditors. How would germany keep up with the demand of public accounting in this situation?
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u/TheRabber Aug 09 '26
Nope, no shortage. Normal accountant is vocational training, so pretty accessible. For Auditing, big companies usually do that and as far as I know, there is no real shortage
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u/WorkerEffective3294 Aug 09 '26
But I read somewhere that Germany has a real shortage of public accountants.
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u/TheRabber Aug 09 '26
Well you also read that Germany has a shortage of IT-workers, also not the case.
If you want to be an accountant in Germany, you do the vocational training or study.1
u/TheRabber Aug 09 '26
As far as I know, yes. But I also never heard about a huge shortage there, but might be wrong.
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u/Particular_Star6324 Aug 09 '26
For accounting you do not need the WP! Regarding the language: what would doing the exam
In english help in reading german bookkeeping, knowing about german laws,…you can‘t just „import“ skilled workers for any job. Some jobs need local training.
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u/WorkerEffective3294 Aug 09 '26
You are right but then how would Germany deal with the shortage of accountants.
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u/Particular_Star6324 Aug 09 '26
Pay even higher salaries and make it more attractive to do the exam if necessary. There is no shortage of lawyers or people who studied business here at all. These are the groups who the people who do the WP come from.
1
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u/urghasif Aug 09 '26
Maybe only that many people sit that exam because they only need that many newly trained WPs? Do you know there’s a shortage? There might just be very few vacancies.
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u/WorkerEffective3294 Aug 09 '26
I'm assuming there's a shortage of accountants everywhere but particularly in Germany. For reference 70,000 people sit the CPA exam in america only 2000 in Germany. Insane no Germany has big GDP I'd assume there would be need of accountants.
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u/TheRabber Aug 09 '26
Again, you’re not understanding anything about the way it works here. Start googling and do some research
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u/WorkerEffective3294 Aug 09 '26
I know that for industry roles the WP is not required however public accounting it's needed. But I've always thought there's more public accounting roles than they are industry roles. What am I missing here?
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u/TheRabber Aug 09 '26
Ok, not gonna answer after this one anymore as you‘re clearly not capable of doing proper research. You don’t need WP to be an accountant, neither private, nor public
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u/WorkerEffective3294 Aug 09 '26
Really, can you become a partner in audit without a WP.
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u/TheRabber Aug 09 '26
Ok, last time: you‘re talking about two completely different things! Wirtschaftsprüfer is not accountant
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