Berlin It is the silver bullet of immigration: foreigners who study in Germany are considered an ideal reservoir to recruit them as skilled workers. After all, they already know the language, the country and the people, according to business associations such as the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), the employers and the Stifterverband. But of the many who study here, far too few remain.
The potential is enormous. Around 330,000 foreigners are currently enrolled at German universities again after a corona-related slump. Their number has tripled since the turn of the millennium.
A good three quarters of the master’s students state that they would also like to stay in Germany for a doctorate or work. However, only a good quarter of them manage to make the leap onto the German labor market in the near future.
According to DAAD President Joybrato Mukherjee, better integration of foreign students could significantly increase this number. So “instead of a good 70,000 students from abroad, more than 100,000, maybe even 110,000 could be persuaded to look for a job here every year,” he says.
The Stifterverband is pushing for better use to be made of the potential of young foreign academics: “We have to advertise our labor market to them much more aggressively,” says its new General Secretary, Volker Meyer-Guckel.
The chances are good: According to a study by the Stifterverband from 2019, seven out of ten students want to stay in Germany. However, only 40 percent manage to find a job.
The Vice General Manager of the DIHK, Achim Dercks, sees a problem in the fact that many international university graduates lack professional networks and sufficient knowledge of the labor market to gain a foothold in working life. Therefore, they should make more intensive use of company internships during their studies. Universities should give them better support.
The Confederation of German Employers’ Associations also sees it as a goal to make it easier for students from abroad to enter the world of work. To do this, the existing support offers for starting a career would have to “think about the specific challenges of foreign students and facilitate contact with companies, for example through career fairs and other networking events”.
Many graduates in STEM subjects
Foreigners are also interesting because they have limited qualifications in Germany, as confirmed by Axel Plünnecke from the German Economic Institute (IW). Eleven percent of the graduates in mathematics and natural sciences came from abroad, and in engineering and computer science it was even 15 percent.
Bottlenecks, especially in the so-called MINT professions, are shown in the current specialist report by the DIHK. According to this, every second company cannot fill vacancies in this area, and every third company is looking in vain for university graduates.
A dampener of hope, however, is the significantly higher dropout rate among foreign students: According to the DAAD figures for 2019, around 40 percent gave up in the bachelor’s degree and a good 20 percent in the master’s degree. Among the German students, on the other hand, it was 27 and 17 percent respectively.
According to a DAAD survey, the young respondents gave language difficulties, financial problems and, in some cases, a feeling of isolation as the reason for dropping out. Graduates find it difficult because they often don’t even know the labor market relevant to them, says the president of the Mukherjee exchange service job interview is culturally customary.”
More engagement demanded from business
Head of the Stifterverband Meyer-Guckel sees the economy as having a duty: “We need much better support, especially from industry.” IW expert Plünnecke also warns German companies to “provide more internships”. In general, everyone involved should organize events inside and outside the universities where foreign students can make friends and learn the language better.
According to DAAD President Mukherjee, the universities often lack the necessary staff. It’s a comparatively small amount of money.
In Anglo-American countries like the USA, Great Britain or Australia, “foreign students are interesting because they bring money to the universities,” says Mukherjee. This results in intensive care. For German universities, however, students from other countries are not a source of income. In addition, the federal states did not adequately reward the special care required. This is particularly noticeable in technical or scientific subjects, for example with a view to the lack of laboratory space.
Germany now has a good reputation in the global competition for bright minds, says Mukherjee. “Today, Germany is considered an extremely cosmopolitan, liberal country that grants protection, despite AfD and right-wing radicalism,” he reports. For example, Berlin is very popular with Israeli students.
Immigration law is also “very generous,” says the president of the exchange service, at least for academics trained here. After graduation, they have 18 months to look for a job and then quickly receive a settlement permit.
Advantage from the mistakes of others
Germany also has a relative advantage due to mistakes made by other countries, says Mukherjee. In the USA, for example, under former President Donald Trump there were research and xenophobic tendencies, and Great Britain isolated itself after Brexit.
Currently, most foreign students in Germany come from China. This is followed by India, Syria, Austria, Russia and Turkey.
According to IW researcher Plünnecke, students from countries with large populations outside the EU such as China are “particularly important from a strategic point of view for securing skilled workers, since the EU countries themselves are facing major demographic challenges”. In addition, there is the multiplication effect: young graduates often bring others from their home country to follow them, thus facilitating further qualified immigration.
DAAD expert Mukherjee sees great potential among Indians in particular, many of whom want to stay. Their number has tripled since 2014. However, there are still only 25,000, “a joke given the size of the subcontinent”.
Mukherjee complains that Germany is no longer consistently attractive for Chinese graduates. Most of them wanted to go back to their home country after graduation.
Great potential in India, Africa and Australia
On the other hand, the DAAD President sees good opportunities to attract more students – and thus more potential specialists – in southern Africa and Latin America. Here, however, it is important not to promote “a brain drain”, he warns. In addition, the potential in Australia is far from exhausted.
More and more colleges are now offering English courses to attract foreigners. Individual institutions such as the Technical University of Munich or the new Technical University of Nuremberg even design the entire master’s program in English.
Mukherjee sees the growing number of English courses as a “double-edged sword”. Of course, this makes learning easier for many foreigners, but not necessarily the leap into working life here. “We definitely require our own scholarship holders to attend a German course.”
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