How to get more specialists? [Solved]

[Antares]

I run a fanatic authoritarian xenophobe empire, I have way too many unemployed slaves and barely any specialists, while having lots of specialist jobs vacant on the same planets.

In my situation, how can I create more specialists?

Last time I've played Stellaris was over a year ago, so the planet mechanics are novel to me, but I get the concept.

[Meewec]

your species that can be specialists needs to reproduce. if you have too many slaves and can do without them breeding for 10 years just forbid your slaves from breeding. this will make your non-slaves be the only ones producing new pops

[LAG]

You need people who are not slaves to become specialists.

workers collect: minerals, food, energy, amneties

specialists collect: science, alloys, consumer goods, crime/deviation prevention

Go into the species tab and check what rights your citizens have, some social statuses (eg slaves) cannot become rulers/specialists, some allow/disallow robots to become rulers/specialists etc.

also if you're a Fanatic xenophobe you should be working your unemployed alien slaves to death with forced labour, to reduce employment (species>purge rights> forced labour purge method).

[Cryten]

A fanatic xenophobe does not have to purge, only determined exterminators and their ilk HAVE to. You can absolutely but slave labour is often more preferable. I would recommend some breeding planets free of slave labour to maximise your primary species breeding. In your situation you might even restrict you slaves breeding rights for 10 years to catch up.

You might want to set your slaves to domestic servitude so they are at least not unemployed.

[Antares]

Thanks folks, I've went ahead with promoting a bunch of species from slaves to residents and that did the trick without annoying the factions too much