Germany desperately needs foreign workers in each passing year. According to Detlef Scheele the Chairman of the Executive Board of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), Germany needs around 400,000 immigrants per year. He further said, “but for me, it is not about asylum seekers, but about targeted immigration for the gaps in the labor market,” said ” (Tuesday). He also explained that country will have a shortage of skilled workers everywhere – “from care and air conditioning to logisticians and academics. Due to the demographic development, the number of potential workers of typical professional age will decrease by almost 150,000 this year.
The new federal government must tackle everything. Help from abroad, especially in the health sector. “The fact is: Germany is running out of workers”. Regarding possible resistance to migration, he said: “You can stand up and say: We don’t want foreigners. But that doesn’t work.” “The fact is: Germany is running out of workers,” said Scheele. He further explained, “It will be much more dramatic in the next few years. The solutions could be:
- Germany can only solve the problem by qualifying the unskilled and people with lost jobs,
- letting women workers who involuntarily work part-time work longer,
- and above all by bringing immigrants into the country.
How Covid effected immigrants?
The Corona crisis has meanwhile exacerbated the problem of insufficient immigration of skilled workers. Last year, the number of applications for recognition of foreign professional qualifications to the German authorities fell by 3 percent to 42,000, as the Federal Statistical Office reported on Tuesday. The procedure was reformed in March 2020 with the Skilled Workers Immigration Act and is intended to ensure accelerated processes. The Skilled Workers Immigration Act is part of the legislative package on migration that was passed by the German Assembly in June 2019. It implements the agreement of the governing parties in the coalition agreement. The law was implemented from 1 March 2020 for the new skilled wor visa categories.
Germany is well on track for receiving skilled workers from around the world despite travel restrictions. On the basis of the Skilled Workers Immigration Act, Germany has issued more than 50,000 visas to skilled workers and trainees since it came into force on March 1, 2020. According to previous reports from March 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, the German diplomatic missions issued almost 30,000 visas to qualified specialists and trainees from third countries despite the pandemic.
Successful migrants so far
Due to the pandemic-related entry restrictions, the statistical office assumes a simultaneously dampening corona effect. Nevertheless, in 2020, 44,800 foreign qualifications were recognized nationwide as being fully or partially equivalent to German qualifications. That was five percent more than the year before. Two-thirds of these (29,900) were in the medical health professions.
Origin of the migrants
Of this, a good half (15,500) were caregivers. According to their country of origin, people from Bosnia-Herzegovina made up the largest group with 3,600, ahead of Serbia (3,400) and Syria (3,100).
Key Points of the new immigration law
Germany’s new immigration law mainly brings the following changes into the old immigration system:
- Suspension of the checks if there are available workers either in Germany or EU countries for the applied job of the foreigners. This will surely help to make the job offer process faster and more vocational and skilled jobs would be open for non-EU workers.
- The previously exercised norm, immigration only for highly skilled ‘Academically Qualified’ persons is to be joined by the vocationally skilled workers. This will help even diploma holders and ones with having professional experience in skilled work to count.
- Under some restrictions, students will be able to come to Germany to attend vocational training courses.
- Permanent residency possible with less time
- Permanent settlement permit for those who have completed a vocational training course in Germany: The new act enables foreigners who have successfully completed a vocational training course in Germany to receive a permanent settlement permit after two years, the same period as applies to graduates.