IT Shortages

"We are calling for the introduction of a point system based on criteria for qualification, age and language skills," said Jörg Menno Harms, vice president of Germany's Federation for Telecommunications, IT and New Media (BITKOM) in an interview with German national radio, Deutschlandfunk.

He was speaking ahead of Germany's first national IT conference, which is being sponsored by the German government and is being held in Potsdam, near Berlin.

Harms said anyone who fulfilled the criteria set out in the points system should be allowed to stay in Germany on a long-term basis.

Firms already suffering from lack of qualified staff

A recent BITKOM survey found that the lack of skilled labour was adversely affecting fifty percent of German IT companies.

Although German unemployment continues to hover around 10 per cent, analysts say the growing shortage of skilled workers in Germany is likely to be accentuated in the coming years by the nation's ageing and shrinking population as well as migration of people out of the country.

In particular, Harms criticized the provision in the immigration law which requires those seeking to move to Germany must earn at least 84,000 euros ($109,000) annually.

The immigration law was introduced in 2005 to encourage the migration of skilled workers, but it seems to have achieved very little: the numbers of qualified migrants to Germany in 2005 fell compared to 2004.