According to an estimate by the Ministry of Economy, there are currently 100,000 vacancies for ICT professionals in Germany and 200,000 vacancies in the wind and solar energy sector. Trains are not running due to a lack of staff, childcare has to close earlier, shops and restaurants remain closed. The staff shortage in Germany is dire. The boomers are retiring and if nothing changes, there will be a shortage of 7 million workers by 2035, according to an estimate by the Department of Labor.
The coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP wants to attract 400,000 extra workers a year from abroad to help solve the staff shortage. On Wednesday afternoon, ministers Hubertus Heil (Labor, SPD), Nancy Faeser (Interior Affairs, SPD), Robert Habeck (Economy, Greens) and Bettina Stark-Watzinger (Education, FDP) presented a draft of a new bill that should make it easier to Immigrate to Germany, if you have the right papers. The law should be passed by the Bundestag early next year.
The staff shortage, the ministers emphasized, will be at the expense of prosperity. “Even if the current recession is behind us and energy prices have returned to normal levels, the economy will not progress if we do not have people,” said Minister Habeck. “We need all helping hands and all smart minds in the future,” said Minister Heil.
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Germany marketing
Following the Canadian example, Germany wants to introduce a points system, so that people who meet certain criteria can move to Germany without much hassle. For example, one of those points is already working in a sector that is understaffed in Germany, another point is speaking the language. Heil calls the German language a ‘competitive disadvantage’ compared to English and Spanish speaking countries. According to Heil, there should be active recruitment abroad for Germany as an attractive location with more ‘Germany marketing’, both for employees and for companies. Immigration should no longer be ‘just bureaucratically accepted’, but actively encouraged. Germany must also become more attractive for students and young people who want to follow vocational training.
According to the ministers, the law actually comes much too late. It has been foreseeable for some time that the demographic bump is slowly shifting to the over-70s.
Minister Heil quotes Max Frisch during the press conference: ‘Wir riefen Arbeitskräfte, und es kamen Menschen’. “We asked for workers, but we got people,” with which the Swiss novelist in 1965 summarized the German helplessness with which the guest workers were received at the time. “We don’t want to repeat mistakes from the past,” said Heil. “Migrants who come here without education often rely on social assistance.” Hence the emphasis on ‘qualified migration’. “The threshold must be lowered, we are not only looking for academics but also professionals.”
Heil hopes for the support of the opposition party CDU, also to ensure broad social support.