A study on labour immigration to Germany was published in February 2013. The study highlights the limited appeal of Germany as a working destination and made several suggestions for reforming immigration rules. However, the Federal Minister for the Interior said the number of labour immigrants entering Germany was rising due to new EU Blue Card regulations. Interest in the issue has been stimulated by Germany’s shrinking working population and shortages of skilled labour.
Background
Over the past decade, the German Federal Government has taken many steps to reform the country’s immigration laws brought in on 1 January 2005. Discussion over the aims of German immigration policy has continued, however, (DE1205039I, DE1211019I, DE1107029I) and the new act has also had an impact on other laws and regulations.
In summer 2012, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi), the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) and the Federal Employment Agency (BA) jointly launched the Qualified Professionals Initiative. The initiative seeks to raise awareness of the effects of a skilled labour shortage, help companies attract or retain qualified workers and stimulate the participation of domestic and foreign skilled workers and professionals in the labour force.
Effect of new regulations
One of the most recent changes to regulations affecting labour immigration is the introduction of the EU Blue Card. Since the beginning of 2013, non-EU university graduates or similarly highly-qualified persons can enter the German labour market as long as they meet certain criteria. They must already have signed an employment contract with an employer based in Germany with a minimum annual gross salary of €46,400. For urgently needed professionals, such as doctors and engineers, the minimum annual gross salary required is lower, at €36,200.
On 18 February 2013, the Federal Minister of the Interior, Hans-Peter Friedrich, presented preliminary figures on the usage of the EU Blue Card in a statement (in German). During the six months after the first revision of the wage thresholds, which took effect in August 2012, 4,126 highly-qualified experts received a Blue Card enabling them to live and work in Germany.
It is significant, however, that more than two thirds (2,832) of these were issued to people already living in Germany, such as foreign graduates of German universities, and only the remainder were issued to new arrivals.
Of the total, 1,656 cards were issued to those in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields or medical occupations qualifying for the lower minimum salary, and 2,470 cards went to other graduates.
The main countries of origin were India and China, followed by Russia and the United States.
While the Federal Minister stressed the success of the new regulations, a recently published Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report indicated that there was plenty of scope for improvement and listed many tasks which still needed to be tackled.
OECD findings and recommendations
The OECD analysis, Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Germany, maintained that the new EU Blue Card would not be sufficient to make Germany an attractive destination for foreign skilled workers and graduates. While German immigration laws had been greatly improved in recent years, only 25,000 labour immigrants arrive in Germany annually. In comparison to other countries, this figure was considered low by the OECD.
The report identified several problems attached to Germany’s labour immigration. It said the country’s administrative procedures, though reformed, were still viewed as difficult by employers and particularly by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The same was true for recruitment from foreign countries. Another problem pinpointed by the OECD report was the matching of available candidates and open positions. A job applicant was also expected to have German language skills and specific occupational qualifications.
In the light of the issues identified, the report recommended several measures for improving labour immigration. These included the reform of administrative procedures, with the OECD saying the regulation (in German, 61Kb PDF) on employment of newly arrived immigrants needed to be rewritten. In the OECD’s view, German immigration law could be described as a series of clauses setting out exceptions to a general recruitment ban on foreign labour. It needed to be simplified and refocused on setting out what conditions had to be met for permission to work in Germany. It also suggested that online applications for labour immigration would improve procedures.
New entry opportunities to the German labour market also needed reform, the OECD suggested. It suggested lowering barriers:
- for highly-qualified professionals, by staggering minimum income thresholds by age;
- for those with vocational qualifications, by facilitating the immigration of foreign apprentices;
- by opening the German labour market to skilled-workers in trades threatened by labour shortages.
The OECD also urged improved support of labour immigration. It said employers needed to be better informed about labour immigration opportunities, and SMEs needed more assistance with the administrative work involved in the recruitment of foreign labour.
It said developing training activities abroad could also help to increase future labour immigration. In addition, foreign experts coming to Germany could be offered language training, and international students from the main countries of origin for foreign labour should be motivated to learn German.
Social partner views
The social partners, on the other hand, held differing views on the merits of labour immigration and the measures required to bring about the necessary changes.
At the end of 2012, the Bavarian industry association (VBW) called in a press release (in German) for more labour immigration. An expert report by research and analysis specialists Prognos undertaken on behalf of VBW suggested that Germany’s demand for skilled labour could not be met with domestic resources alone.
Bertram Brossardt, Chief Executive Officer of VBW, emphasised that domestic resources had to be activated more fully, but that foreign experts were also needed. The Prognos report highlighted the fact that each year until 2020, around 200,000 new arrivals would be needed to tackle a rising shortage in skilled labour. Of these, around 40,000 were needed in Bavaria. Many more would have to be attracted to reduce the skill shortage.
Brossardt called for a relaxation of immigration regulations and accelerated recognition of foreign qualifications. He said this would mean labour immigration could become a cornerstone of the struggle to combat the negative effects of demographic change. Other measures favoured by VBW were encouraging more women to join the labour market, improving the employability of the unemployed through better training, and schemes to lengthen working hours and the working life of the population in general.
A completely different view of the situation was taken by the Trade Union for Building, Forestry, Agriculture and the Environment (IG BAU). While employers have focused on highly-qualified personnel, the union spoke on behalf of less well qualified workers who might also profit from the relaxation of immigration law.
On 22 January 2013, Klaus Wiesehügel, Chair of IG BAU, called in a press release for better protection of migrant workers. The union fears that workers from other European countries coming to work in Germany could be exploited by ‘dubious employers’. Little information on statutory minimum working conditions was available to these workers in their own languages. Since they had to rely on employers who might not inform them on their rights, it would be all too easy for them to be paid irresponsibly low wages.
Wiesehügel was speaking at the opening of a new information centre for migrant workers in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is operated by the European Migrant Workers Union (EVW), of which Wiesehügel is a board member. In Rhineland-Palatinate many eastern European seasonal workers are employed in agriculture. The new centre provides advice to migrant workers in their native language on their rights in Germany.
Sandra Vogel, Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW Köln)