Germany – Federal Employment Agency urgently appeals to allow more immigrants with in-demand skills (The Local.de)

August 26, 2021

The head of Germany’s Federal Employment Agency has made an urgent appeal to the government to allow many more immigrants with in-demand skills to enter the country, reports The Local.de. “Germany lacks a skilled workforce,” said Detlef Scheele, chairman of the Federal Employment Agency. Due to demographic change, the number of potential working age employees is already declining by nearly 150,000 this year, he said, adding that “in the next few years it will be much more dramatic”. Scheele added: “Demographic trends are more critical than the transformation of the economy. He said Germany can only solve the problem by training unskilled workers, allowing part-time employed women to work longer hours and, most importantly, bringing immigrants into the country.

“We need 400,000 immigrants a year. In other words, much more than in previous years, ”said Scheele. “From nurses to air conditioning technicians, logisticians and academics: there will be a shortage of skilled workers everywhere. In 2019, the government drafted a law to facilitate the migration of workers with professional skills to Germany. The skilled immigration law came into effect in March 2020 – the month of the country’s first national Covid-19 lockdown. The aim of the law is to ease restrictions and red tape for qualified professionals when migrating to Germany through simplified visa applications.