There is a shortage of skilled workers in almost all sectors, so great hopes are pinned on finding urgently needed employees abroad or among refugees. But for those who are already here, the process of having qualifications acquired abroad recognized is often difficult and lengthy. Proof of the equivalence of foreign qualifications is complex. The service point for the development of foreign qualifications of the municipal social department should help. But the guides through the recognition jungle are overburdened: more than 600 people seeking advice are on the waiting list, they have to wait six months for an appointment. An increase in staffing of the currently 8.5 city-funded positions by five positions, as requested by the green-red town hall alliance, should now help to shorten the waiting time.
When the war of aggression against Ukraine began a little over a year ago, 350 people were on the waiting list; now there are 606. The inquiries from mid-October last year are currently being processed, according to the social services department. “Inquiries from people from abroad who have the prospect of a job in Munich are not even put on the waiting list,” reported social affairs officer Dorothee Schiwy to the city council’s social committee. There were around 400 such inquiries in 2021 alone. Then there was the Ukraine war with its unforeseeable consequences: “The explosive nature of the shortage of skilled workers in Munich has increased enormously.”
Since more than a third of the refugees are children and young people and the proportion of vulnerable people is also high, this also has a direct impact on the need for specialist staff to look after and care for the refugees, for example in daycare facilities, schools, health care, support and advice in accommodation , adult education. More staff is also urgently needed in the city administration, not only in childcare: “There is now a massive lack of socio-educational staff, among other things”. And for the energy transition there is a lack of specialists in engineering and trades.
Although the service center is not a recognition authority, it does advise on the possibilities of professional recognition, helps with the application and accompanies you through the process. If there is only partial recognition, the service center takes care of offers that lead to full recognition and thus to successful integration as a skilled worker on the Munich job market. Many of those seeking advice have qualifications whose German reference occupations are among the shortage occupations. Inquiries, for which the service point advises, often come from educators, especially for day-care centres, from social pedagogues, engineers, doctors, nurses and physiotherapists.
The plenum of the city council decided against the votes of the AfD to increase the service center staff by five full-time positions with annual costs of almost 390,000 euros and some other additional personnel for the social department.