“They said to me: ‘Do care, otherwise you have to go!'” This statement by a young refugee from a West African country reveals the whole misery in migration policy as well as on the job market.
As important and correct as it is to integrate people who have come to us via escape routes as quickly as possible, they cannot solve our labor market problem.
If refugees stay with us, it cannot be beneficial for their integration if they are pushed into “shortage jobs” – contrary to their inclinations and existing work experience.
With people who are already in our country and will likely stay, we must make the effort to explore their individual potential. The opportunity stay planned by Ampel ensures that refugees’ training and work careers, once they have started, are not needlessly interrupted again.
With the opportunity stay, we solve integration problems and put the people staying with us on their own two feet. But what we are not solving with this are the problems of our aging society and the resulting bottlenecks on the labor market.
For years it had been foreseeable that Germany would find itself in a massive demographic imbalance. It is now at the traffic light to finally address this realization and set the course for migration policy with strategic courage. As in other immigration countries, the focus will be on targeted labor immigration that is not mixed up with the area of asylum and flight.
The first proposal for labor immigration put forward by Interior Minister Faeser and Labor Minister Heil basically goes in the right direction: it is right to defuse the problem of recognizing professional qualifications by also attaching importance to practical work experience.
At the same time, we have to make sure that we don’t only address people at the level of a specialist. In order to really meet our challenges, we must therefore go one step further.
We always talk about a “lack of skilled workers”, but in fact we have a shortage of workers in Germany. Closed restaurants, chaotic conditions at the airports, no chance of an appointment with a craftsman – our labor shortage is now noticeable to everyone.
Not every country has a comparable education system
Targeted immigration must be one of the most important levers to counteract massive welfare losses. The serve of the two ministers is still far too despondent. In order to achieve the scientifically agreed goal of at least 400,000 net labor immigrants per year, we must become more attractive in the international competition for workers. We must offensively seize the opportunity that we have been a country of immigration for decades.
In the coalition agreement, the introduction of an opportunity card with a point system is agreed. Heil and Faeser’s proposal does not do justice to this agreement. Because their importance and necessity are put into perspective by announced measures and de facto only small adjustments to immigration law are proposed.
The fundamental principle of the requirement for the equivalence of qualifications based on the German model is being adhered to too closely. However, we have to say goodbye to the idea that every country has a (training) system that is comparable to Germany, and we have to forgo recognition where it is possible without loss of quality. It will not be enough if only academics and qualified specialists come to our country.
In order for the opportunity map we have in mind to achieve its social goals, namely immigration even below the qualification of a “skilled worker”, it must use several levers:
market economy: Apart from regulated professions, it should be left to future employers as far as possible to choose their employees without being slowed down by official recognition procedures. Foreigners would thus be treated largely on an equal footing with nationals on the labor market.
I miss this market regulation in the proposal by Hubertus Heil and Nancy Faeser. Applicants who do not yet have a job, on the other hand, could, as long as they meet the necessary number of points to be determined in the point system, be included in an applicant pool in order to contact a future employer from there.
Europe: The European Commission has also submitted proposals to increase labor migration. One of them is the introduction of a Europe-wide talent pool from which the member states can select suitable employees. We must ensure from the outset that we create systems that are as compatible as possible, so that targeted, regular migration can be more successful throughout Europe. Germany can set an example here and show how successful migration can work on a market basis, as proposed by the Commission.
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Digitization and de-bureaucratization: After the point system has been implemented, a significant increase in the number of procedures can be expected. Employers and potential immigrants could use a points calculator to reliably calculate online their chances of the extent to which an employee’s profile satisfies the job market and aspects of integration policy. It is also possible to have documents and certificates checked for authenticity in a digitized preliminary check, supported by artificial intelligence.
Integration: “…and people came.” Our social goal must be the integration of those who want to live and work with us and make a conscious decision to immigrate to our country, our society and our values. Heil and Faeser’s proposal completely ignores this aspect. A points system can be used to ensure that applicants with German or English language skills, a solid school education, suitable professional experience and other aspects relevant to integration come to our country.
mindset: We should see even more clearly that we are in an international competition for talent. Migration policy must not be a policy of prevention, but rather a policy of opportunities for both sides. This should also lead to a correspondingly positive communication by government agencies, marketing and dealing with applicants. I miss the reference to this very important change in our basic attitude in Heil and Faeser’s proposal.
Critical Review: Ultimately, as a society, we should set ourselves clear migration policy goals and regularly evaluate whether they have been achieved. The new system must be designed in such a way that adjustments can be made at any time. The points system represents an effective solution here due to the easily implementable adjustment of the point allocation for individual criteria.
It can always be critically examined whether the evaluation still corresponds to the needs of the labor market and at the same time it can be ensured that the social integration power is still sufficiently taken into account. Now all that is needed is further migration policy courage in society and in the responsible ministries.
The author: Ann-Veruschka Jurisch is a member of the Bundestag and rapporteur for the FDP parliamentary group on regular immigration.
More: The federal government wants to make immigration easier for skilled workers.