Deutsche Telekom has announced plans to hire up to 3,500 new people this year, roughly 1,400 of whom will be recent graduates and seasoned professionals. The remaining 2,100 jobs on offer will be reserved for young, talented employees with internal training, with a focus on graduates from Deutsche Telekom's cooperative study programs. The number of new positions will thus remain steady at last year's level.

"Given a dramatically widening skills gap and the demographic and technological shifts currently under way, we will lose if we snooze," says Thomas Sattelberger, Chief Human Resources Officer at Deutsche Telekom, explaining the continuously high number of new hires.

"The economic crisis notwithstanding, we plan to continue rebalancing the age structure against the cycle at Deutsche Telekom, bring some new know-how into the company and enlarge our community of talented individuals," says Sattelberger.In particular, software developers, business administration graduates, product managers, business analysts and IT architects will be sought on the external labor market. The fact that a large number of experts are set to be hired for customer service positions underscores yet again Deutsche Telekom's determination to offer their customers the best service in the industry.

Moreover, the company is recruiting up to 50 "high potentials" for its newly developed young talent program ("Start up!") who will complete their training by fulfilling a wide variety of functions across the company - from strategy to IT to finance and human resources.

A key focus of Deutsche Telekom's HR planning in 2010 is to promote internal talent. 2,100 of the positions to be filled will be offered to young peo