Germany's talent deficit pushes Siemens to make India a key global capability hub, says board member Judith Wiese

Judith Wiese, board member and chief people and sustainability officer at Siemens AG, cautioned that Germany will lose 15-20% of its workforce over the next decade due to demographics. And this is why India is “central” to Siemens' strategy of a capability hub.In an exclusive interaction with Mint, Wiese assuaged fears of AI-led layoffs, marked out workplace shifts since the pandemic and spoke on how data centres do guzzle energy, but that challenge needs to be dealt with responsibly.Some things have stayed since covid, particularly hybrid work. In India and China, more employees prefer working from the office.

In other regions, hybrids remain common. What has fundamentally changed is the speed of AI adoption. Generative AI is a completely different ballgame.Companies need both to stay competitive and so do people.

The shelf life of skills has shrunk dramatically. In technology, it may be five years, sometimes even less. That means learning must become continuous.

AI does disrupt tasks. But it also democratizes knowledge.With the right systems, we can personalize learning in seconds — suggesting adjacent career paths, new skills, and development journeys. If companies invest in their people and people invest in themselves, AI becomes an opportunity, not a threat.Everyday AI includes tools that boost productivity.

Research suggests tools like Microsoft Copilot can save about 27 minutes per employee per week. We don’t use that to eliminate roles; we reinvest the productivity into growth.In our factories, we deployed an industrial copilot. It was meant to save time for maintenance engineers — and it did.