So far, there has been broad agreement from the Union to the SPD to the Greens that the shortage of skilled workers in Germany must also be combated by more immigrants. Now, however, the deputy CDU chairman Carsten Linnemann is striking a much more critical tone. “It is completely illusory that 400,000 skilled workers are supposed to come to Germany every year,” he told the Bild newspaper. Since more people are retiring in Germany than natives are entering the labor market, the shortage of skilled workers is likely to worsen. Experts estimate the number of immigrants needed to fill this gap at around 400,000 per year.
Linnemann doubts that this can work. “In 2021, around 530,000 people came to us from third countries outside Europe. Only a fraction of them – around 40,000 – came for work purposes. With this low quota, how do we want to get an additional 400,000 skilled workers?” The entire infrastructure is not designed for such immigration, said CDU Vice Linnemann, there is a lack of housing, schools and kindergartens. “The traffic light has to stop telling fairy tales. It just wants to keep lowering the barriers to immigration and opens the door to uncontrolled immigration. We can’t allow that.”
On average, Germans retire at the age of 64.1
The traffic light coalition is planning a reform of immigration law that should smooth the way for more workers to Germany; including those who do not have a professional qualification recognized in Germany. In addition, the federal government wants to introduce a points system based on the Canadian model and do more to attract foreign students and trainees. At the end of November, the Federal Cabinet passed the corresponding key points. However, Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) repeatedly emphasized that domestic opportunities first had to be exhausted, with women extending their weekly working hours, the unemployed catching up on training and older people working longer.
It was only at the weekend that Heil (SPD) asked employers to focus more on older employees. “The time when over 60-year-olds were thrown away in many large corporations must be over,” he said Mirror. In times of a growing shortage of workers and skilled workers, the German economy cannot do without experienced employees. On average, employees in Germany retire at the age of 64.1, well before the statutory retirement age. She is currently almost 66 years old.
According to Heil’s predecessor Andrea Nahles, now head of the Federal Employment Agency, the shortage of skilled workers will hit German companies harder than international competitors. “The labor market is changing more in Germany than in other countries because we have a massive demographic problem,” said Nahles Augsburg General. “Work-life balance issues need to be renegotiated, just as my generation renegotiated the distribution of work between women and men in families,” Nahles said. “Negotiating also means addressed to the younger generation: work is not a pony farm.” Nahles is also counting on more immigrants. Germany is often still too complicated, for example when it comes to the recognition of foreign professional qualifications.
Linnemann’s argument is misleading
However, the number of only “around 40,000” immigrants from third countries who came to Germany to work in 2021, which Linnemann now mentions, is misleading. For years, more than 60,000 people from countries outside the EU had come to earn money, in 2019 there were a good 64,000 before the corona pandemic prevented many from moving and companies from further hiring. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants from EU countries every year who enjoy freedom of movement and, for the most part, also move to Germany to work. In 2019 alone, more than 170,000 people came to Germany from the two main countries of origin, Romania and Bulgaria, before this number also fell significantly during the Corona crisis.
The lack of living space, on the other hand, which Linnemann also addresses, is considered a major problem not only for locals, but also for migrants with a job offer from Germany. Especially in metropolitan areas such as Hamburg, Munich or the Rhine-Main region, it has often become extremely difficult to find an apartment, even when you can advertise yourself with a solid middle income. The same applies to many schools. These are currently taking in thousands of children who have fled Ukraine – and at the same time have to cope with a shortage of teachers.