analysis
The ministers of the traffic light coalition are desperately looking for skilled workers abroad. But can traveling halfway around the world solve the problem?
“Can you imagine working in other countries, for example in Germany?” Labor Minister Hubertus Heil asks the prospective nurses and receives a friendly nod – here at the other end of the world, at the University of Brasilia. But many are also skeptical.
In 2022, 34 professional nurses from Brazil came to the country. “Sobering figures” are what the “German Foundation for Patient Protection” calls this on the occasion of the recent ministerial campaign tour. Sobering, because it can be assumed that by 2035 there will be a shortage of half a million specialists in the hospital and nursing sector alone.
It is now the third trip that Heil has made abroad to recruit specialists for Germany. This time he has Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at his side, who promises fast visas at the same time. Support also comes from the Federal Employment Agency. She has brokerage agreements with Brazil since 2022. Specifically, the agency looks after 374 Brazilian applicants from nursing professions, 43 from technical and craft professions and 42 from engineering and IT professions. The goal is for 700 skilled workers to come to Germany every year.
The need is enormous
And yet these are only the smallest successes so far, measured against the dimension of the challenge: According to experts, seven million additional skilled workers will be needed in Germany by 2035, simply due to the upcoming wave of retirements among the baby boomers.
For this, around 18 million foreign skilled workers would have to come by 2035, economist Enzo Weber calculates in an interview with the daily topics before. The reason for this is that many did not stay in Germany permanently and emigrated again after a few years. Weber is an economic researcher at the Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research (IAB), which belongs to the Federal Employment Agency and also advises the federal government.
Converted over the twelve years, an average of 1.5 million skilled workers would have to come every year. And because Germany is in strong competition with countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia for highly qualified people – not just in the IT sector – that means: recruit, recruit, recruit.
Since March 2020, when the Skilled Immigration Act came into force, around 130,000 visas have been issued to qualified specialists and trainees from third countries outside the European Union. According to the Ministry of Labour, by the end of 2022 there were only around 350,000 workers from third countries with a residence permit for the purpose of gainful employment in Germany. There are no more precise figures showing which skilled workers come from which third country. According to the migration report, less than four percent came from Africa in 2021, and even less from Latin America overall.
“A lot of bureaucracy and little culture of welcome”
According to the OECD and a recent study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany is only moderately attractive for migrant workers. In the case of highly qualified employees, the trend has even been downwards since 2019. The reasons are manifold: the language barrier compared to English or Spanish-speaking countries, the tax burden, but also the quality of professional opportunities for migrants: the so-called overqualification rate of immigrants who were born outside the EU is high. According to the study, the lack of acceptance of migrants also weighs heavily here – especially compared to the top group of recruiting countries. “Germany radiates a lot of bureaucracy and little welcoming culture,” said labor market expert and economist Holger Bonin to “Zeit online”.
Heil knows that, of course: “Imagine, we have a really great recruitment campaign, a lot of people come to Germany and are immediately put off again because the bureaucracy takes too long – we can’t afford that.” He was even more explicit in English during a working visit to Canada in March: “We want to destroy bureaucracy!” – the bureaucratic hurdle should be destroyed.
So far, Germany’s labor market has certainly received immigration of skilled workers from Europe, especially from Eastern Europe. But the source is drying up, because the European countries are aging, according to IAB expert Weber – one must now look further abroad, in countries with younger societies.
Worldwide recruitment tour
In every sixth profession there is a lack of specialists – from the nursing profession to IT experts. According to the latest figures from the Federal Employment Agency (BA), the number of so-called bottleneck occupations rose to 200 last year. The hotel and catering industry has also joined the ranks, as have metal construction and bus drivers.
That’s why Labor Minister Heil was on a recruitment tour in Canada in March, shortly before that in Ghana, together with Development Minister Svenja Schulze. In Ghana, Germany cooperates with so-called EU migration centers. Schulze admitted during her trip: “There won’t be many who come, but we have to get specialists. And these centers can help with that.”
Immigrant networks important
Can these trips by German ministers really make a difference? “They bring something,” says IAB expert Weber: When it comes to third countries, it takes the development of cooperation and networks on site. The government can do that, but then it has to be implemented by the ministerial level at the working level on site, at the embassies and training institutions.
Above all, however, there is a need for network building, even for immigrants who have returned home. They could help to advertise for Germany. “But they would have to have the chance to stay in contact with Germany.” Weber therefore advocates longer residence permits than the currently valid six months, as they exist in Canada or France. There you have the opportunity to return three years after a work stay.
Is the traffic light coalition lagging behind?
There are probably a lot of screws that still need to be turned. The traffic light coalition wants to reform the Skilled Immigration Act that came into force during the 2020 grand coalition. A point system based on the Canadian model is to be introduced and be able to replace a professional qualification recognized in this country, which was previously required to enter Germany and look for work. That had been identified as too high a hurdle.
But here, too, politics may be lagging behind the times. The points are intended to allow people to look for work, but if they find a job, those arriving would have to meet all the immigration requirements again in a second stage. For Weber, this is no longer up-to-date, as job searches are now done digitally: It is not entirely realistic for someone to travel from far away to see if there is a job notice posted at the factory gate. “If you want to make a point system a success, it has to entitle you to work at one stage”. Minister of Labor Heil will probably have to remember his statement from Canada more often that he really wants to destroy bureaucracy.