Even if the BA boss was only repeating familiar figures, he underlined the importance of migration for prosperity with his statement. This is now underpinned by a study that the Competence Center for Skilled Workers (Kofa), located at the Institute of German Economy (IW), has prepared for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
It says that immigrants and refugees make up a significant proportion of the workforce, especially in jobs with staff shortages. Many socially and economically necessary activities could no longer be carried out without migrants.
For example, in 2020, 8.2 percent of all skilled workers in geriatric care had a foreign passport, and the proportion has almost doubled since 2013. The situation is similar in health care and nursing. Every eighth employee in building electronics comes from abroad, in plumbing, heating and air conditioning around one in ten.
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These professions are among the largest gaps in skilled workers in Germany. So migrants help to fill vacancies. There is also a shortage of staff behind the steering wheels of trucks or in restaurants. In the autumn of last year, for example, there was a shortage of 12,000 professional drivers and 4,200 catering specialists across Germany – despite the slowdown in demand due to the pandemic.
Immigrants alleviate staff shortages for professional drivers or in the catering trade
Without immigrants, however, the shortage would be even greater. Because almost 133,000 immigrants are already behind the wheel of a truck, meaning that around one in four drivers with vocational training was not born in Germany. Great Britain has to experience painfully just how difficult it is to keep logistics running without migrants, which has also lost many truck drivers with Brexit.
In this country, however, gastronomy can hardly make ends meet without immigrants. Of the skilled workers in this industry, 91,000, or almost a third, are foreign nationals. Of all employees subject to social security contributions, more than four million immigrated – around one in eight. Compared to 2013, this corresponds to an increase of 75 percent. Almost half of them have jobs that require vocational or school training.
For Germany, however, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract migrants from abroad. The migration balance, i.e. the difference between immigration and emigration, has been falling continuously since 2016, as can be seen in the Migration Report 2020 of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), which the Federal Cabinet passed on Wednesday.
Despite severe restrictions caused by the pandemic, immigration did not come to a complete standstill in the first corona year. In total, around 220,000 more people immigrated to Germany than emigrated. More than two out of three immigrants from abroad came from another EU country. The largest group was made up of Romanians, followed by Poles and Bulgarians.
Refugee migration fell sharply in the first corona year, which contributed to the decline in the positive migration balance. While around 142,500 asylum applications were made in Germany in 2019, a year later the number was just under 102,600. In the past year, however, the trend reversed. In 2021, the BAMF registered 190,816 asylum applications again. Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq were the three main countries of origin for those seeking protection.
Refugees also help to alleviate the labor shortage in Germany – and by no means only in support activities for which no training is required.
According to the Kofa study, around 315,000 refugees were in employment subject to social security contributions in 2020. Of these, around 120,000 had a job that required vocational or school training – that was five times more than in 2013. However, the peak of refugee migration to Germany was not reached until 2015. The hospitality industry and warehouse management in particular offer refugees career prospects.
As the IW researchers point out, even in the crisis year 2020, the number of refugees employed in skilled workers continued to rise – although they are disproportionately often employed in service professions that have been severely affected by the pandemic. This is an indication of successful qualification and integration measures.
Migrants help to cope with the training misery
Migrants are increasingly helping companies to fill vacant apprenticeships. In 2019, 60,000 training contracts were concluded with young people from abroad – twice as many as ten years earlier. Almost two out of three migrants began their training in a job with a shortage of skilled workers. Of the newcomers to training with a German passport, this only applied to just under 58 percent in 2019.
Read more about the shortage of skilled workers here
Migrants and refugees made “an important and above-average contribution to securing the long-term demand for skilled workers, especially in the professions that are in high demand on the labor market,” says the study, which also highlights regional differences.
The share of migrants among all employees in skilled trades is highest in Baden-Württemberg, at 15.1 percent, followed by Hesse (14.6 percent) and Bavaria (13.5 percent). Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia have the lowest rates of 3.5 percent or just above.
More: The German economy lacks hundreds of thousands of people – there is a threat of a standstill