interview
Minister of Labor Heil is currently recruiting skilled workers in India. In the tagesschau24interview, he is confident of being able to convince young people. But he also appeals to business and society.
tagesschau24: The cooperation with India has existed for a long time, and you have already been able to bring nursing staff to Germany via the so-called “Triple Win” program. How and with what were you able to lure them?
Hubertus Heil: We have good arguments for promoting Germany. Because it is clear that we need skilled workers in Germany with domestic potential, so we have to pull out all the stops. But we also need qualified immigrants. We have now created a modern immigration law. And today I spoke to young people who want to work in very different professions in Germany. There is great potential there and there are good connections, because India has a low average age. He’s 28 here, in Germany he’s 49.
There are many young people who cannot find work here, but who see an opportunity with us. And there we can combine what is useful, the interests of India and Germany and the interests of young people. If we treat them fairly, if we have good arguments that we can use to promote Germany.
tagesschau24: Yes, but once again the question: what can you offer them so that they really come?
Unhurt: The interesting thing is when you talk to the young people themselves why they chose Germany. I saw a young man who said he wanted to work as a butcher in Germany because we have a stable political system and there is relatively little crime here. I experienced a young woman who said: you have a good training system, you have universities of applied sciences. By the way, she wants to work for us in the aviation industry. I experienced someone else who said: I deliberately learned German, Canada is also an exciting immigration country, but it is geographically further away from us.
So despite all the deficits that we have in Germany, we can advertise our country with good reasons. We are a strong economy, we have a good education system, we have a safe country. Despite all the disadvantages that Germany also has – the weather isn’t always great and our language isn’t as widespread around the world as, for example, English – there are certainly young people whom we can win over with good arguments. The most important thing now is a recruitment strategy by the German economy itself. And the most important thing is that with the immigration law we are tearing down the bureaucratic hurdles that have so far meant that we have not been able to reach enough helping hands and clever minds in the world, including in India .
tagesschau24: What would you like to change yourself to make Germany even more attractive?
Unhurt: The first step has been taken. With the modern immigration law that has now been passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat, we are tearing down bureaucracy. But we have to become even faster, also in the visa process. That works quite well in India, the embassy tells me it takes three weeks for a work visa. But if more come now, the capacities have to be there, we also have to become more digital in order to speed up such processes.
The most important thing for our society, however, is to understand: It’s not just workers and skilled workers who come, there are people who we have to treat decently. And we have to give them the chance to become part of our society if they are with us longer, if they pay taxes and work for us. We already have experience in Germany, in West Germany, with the so-called guest worker immigration of the 1960s. We must not repeat the mistakes of that time. At that time the poet Max Frisch said we wanted workers, but people came. And that means for us that we have to expect and also offer integration in our society. Then this will also work.
tagesschau24: But that is a very crucial point: How do you want to ensure that? How do you actually intend to create the appropriate conditions at this point?
Unhurt: One prerequisite is that we all understand in Germany that, in addition to all our domestic efforts – for example through better pay and better working conditions for German skilled workers and better training and further education – we also need skilled workers to immigrate. There has to be an awareness in our society that we can’t somehow bureaucratically use a few academics and have to accept that there is immigration. Instead, we have to want immigration as a supplement. The numbers speak for it. If we don’t pull out all the stops, we’ll be short of six to seven million workers and skilled workers by 2035. We have to win a large part of it domestically through training and further education, through better female employment, also through digitization. But we need additional qualified immigration. That means the open-mindedness has to be there.
tagesschau24: Now you have named a few professions that are of interest. But in Germany there is a lack of skilled workers in many areas. For which sectors can you still recruit new, qualified people in the foreseeable future?
Unhurt: This applies to all industries. It’s about IT specialists, it’s also about the issue of care. But it is also about the service sector, gastronomy. At the moment, the shortage of workers and skilled workers is an issue in Germany because we have a good situation on the labor market. There have never been so many people in work, 46 million employed. But if we don’t take care of securing skilled workers now, the problem will get bigger because from 2025 the baby boomers, those born before 1964, the baby boomers, will retire. And these are very strong vintages.
tagesschau24: But to what extent can the gap be closed?
Unhurt: Above all, we must leverage domestic potential. We still have those. Around 1.6 million people between the ages of 20 and 30 in Germany have not completed vocational training. It is important to me that we do something for domestic potential with the Education and Training Act. There’s a lot that’s dormant. I said earlier that women’s participation in the labor market is the largest skilled worker measure that we have in Germany with potential. We really have to pull out all the stops and then we need additional qualified immigration.
Digitization will also mean that human labor can be used elsewhere. In other words, we are now tackling this major task, and all I can say is: doing nothing is not an option. We take care of it with the education and training law, with an immigration law. But as a society as a whole we have to understand that if we want to be economically successful, if a shortage of skilled workers is not to become a permanent brake on growth in Germany, we urgently need to pull out all the stops.
This can only be achieved if the state and business work together. The companies have their part to play, the social partners have their part to play, and the federal government plays its part to ensure that this succeeds. Because once again: we cannot manage any major task that we have in our society, whether housing construction, energy transition or care, without securing skilled workers. It is therefore one of the greatest tasks for Germany, in addition to an affordable and sustainable energy supply for our business location, to ensure that we have an adequate base of skilled workers – through measures in Germany and additional qualified immigration, which we will now organize.
Kathrin Schlass asked the questions. The interview was shortened and edited for the written version.