Labor gap

German labor authorities have been actively encouraging international job placements for almost two decades. For most of that time officials dealt with Germans who were interested in working abroad, but these days the situation has been reversed.

With economic growth expected to reach 3.1 percent this year and unemployment at a 20-year low in June, the Federal Labor Agency has been looking for foreign workers to fill a growing labor gap.

In particular, it has intensified efforts to target skilled workers from the crisis-hit economies of Spain, Portugal and Greece, where unemployment rates range from 12.4 to 20.9 percent.

The reaction from German citizens has been overwhelmingly negative.

"There's no 'skilled labor shortage' in Germany," wrote one reader commenting on an article on the website of the respected Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

"Companies are complaining about a situation that they themselves brought about. They need to drop by the unemployment office where they'll surely run into former co-workers," wrote another.

Flood of foreigners?

The labor agency's office that handles international job placements, the ZAV, reported that 17,000 Spaniards registered in an online database indicated they were interested in possibly coming to Germany for work.

For many Germans, those kinds of numbers stir fears of a flood of foreign workers descending on the country, taking away jobs. Calls have gone out to train more Germans to fill highly skilled positions instead of giving them to foreigners.

Such a reaction is exasperating to Hilmar Schneider, director of labor policy at the Bonn-based Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

"Skilled workers who come don't take away jobs from anyone else," he says with a certain amount of resignation. "On the contrary, they increase overall demand."

Schneider's agency says that skilled workers, in addition to creating work for other skills workers, can actually create up to three jobs for people with fewer marketable skills.

IZA research also found that the increased demand for low-skilled workers pushed up their wages, while wages for skilled employees remained the same or sank slightly because of the arrivals from abroad. Foreign workers helped promote a more even income distribution, the agency said.

Not attractive enough

Labor expert Schneider says he wishes more Spaniards would consider relocating to Germany. Of the 17,000 who registered interest on the database, it's likely that at the most, 1,500 or so would actually come to Germany, he said.

That's only a drop in the bucket, he says, explaining that in the next 30 years, Germany will find itself facing a labor shortage of 300,000 to 500,000 people.

Schneider says Germany has to play a serious game of catch-up since it has fallen far behind countries like Britain and Scandinavia when it comes to recruiting skilled foreign workers.

"We are not attracting immigrants to the extent that we need to," he told Deutsche Welle.

Last year the economics minister at the time, Rainer Brüderle, floated the idea of introducing cash 'welcome' payments to lure more skilled workers to Germany.

He also called on the coalition government to lower the minimum income level the country requires for skilled workers to be eligible for extended immigrant status, which is currently set at 66,000 euros. Many economists say that number is too high.

But the proposals were quickly rejected by labor leaders as well as a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Still, Beate Raabe from the ZAV thinks that the crisis in southern Europe means Germany's chances of bringing in good people to work have improved – although it may become difficult again in the long term.

Germany is not the only country looking to fill empty positions. Many of its European neighbors also need skilled workers for growing sectors like healthcare and IT, as well as engineers for the high-tech manufacturing branch.

"That means that these professional groups will eventually have work opportunities in their own countries," she says. "They will be less willing to move abroad for a job."

Political hot potato

Hilmar Schneider doesn't think it will be easy to get a handle on the labor shortage problem, especially since it's a sensitive issue for politicians. Advocating more immigration is a sure-fire way to lose votes in many regions of Germany.

In addition, word has got around in many parts of the world that Germany doesn't make it especially easy for foreign workers to set up a new life here. The language barrier is significant, partly because German is rarely the foreign language of choice at schools in countries that don't share borders with Germany.

While employers in the UK and Scandinavia help foreign workers search for housing and schools for their children, newcomers in Germany are generally left to their own devices.

Raabe from the ZAV says German companies are going to have to change their ways in the future. The pool of home-grown job applicants is shrinking and it's becoming increasingly necessary to actively court good job candidates.

"The key is providing a balance between work and family," she told Deutsche Welle. "An employer who can offer that is a very attractive one."

Schneider is somewhat more pessimistic, however, saying that if German firms come to believe that the job hunt at home has become too difficult, they can simply pull up stakes and go to the where the skilled people are – outside Germany.

Author: Jutta Wasserrab / jam
Editor: Sam Edmonds