Study Shows Many German Green Card Holders Out of Work
June 17, 2003
Many of Germany's Green Card workers appear to be out of work, according to new research findings.
The study, which was carried out by the Federal Labor Office's Institute for Employment Research, showed that seven percent of the foreign IT experts in Munich -- where some 1,500 of the special permit holders came to work - - have registered themselves unemployed since 2000. A fifth lost their jobs within a year of arriving in the country.
The nationwide Green Card program, introduced by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's administration in August 2000, was a bid to quickly fill the job slots created in Germany by the IT and dotcom boom in the late 1990s. Some 14,000 five-year-long residence permits have since been granted to technology experts who have come to Germany mainly from Eastern Europe, India and North Africa.
Tip of the iceberg?
Although the ministry's findings are limited to one city, the study's author believes the situation in Munich may be mirrored across the country.
"It's possible that unemployment offices in other areas have similar figures," Franziska Schreyer, the author of the study wrote. She added that many more Green Card holders were likely not to have registered themselves as unemployed, despite losing their jobs.
With the latest figures putting German joblessness at around 4.5 million and the German economy struggling to avoid a recession, the news is the last thing the government needs.
CDU/CSU criticizes Green Card program
The opposition Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), who have long argued that the Green Card program was unnecessary and immigration to Germany should be more regulated, immediately went for the jugular, saying the research findings vindicated their position."Firstly, the German IT industry massively overestimated how many specialists it needed during the dotcom boom," Wolfgang Bosbach, CDU/CSU deputy parliamentary group leader responsible for immigration issues, told Deutsche Welle. "Secondly, the four states, including Bavaria, which did not put the law on the statute books, have attracted more specialists than the other 16 states, which did introduce the Green Card program. Put together... (It proves) we do not need it (the Green card program)," he said.
Bosbach maintained that the system was essentially flawed. "I doubt you are going to attract the best specialists, if you say to them you have to go back after five years," he said. He added that the number of German IT workers now out of a job had quadrupled since the system was introduced.
Although Bosbach conceded that the masses of unemployed Germans in the IT sector were not solely due to the Green Card program but also a result of the dotcom bomb, he stressed Schröder’s first task should be to remedy domestic unemployment.
"We should find German IT workers a job before we send for foreign specialists," Bosbach told Deutsche Welle.
Not a signal of failure
But the Federal Ministry for Economics and Labor insisted the research findings were not a sign that the initiative had failed.
"The introduction of the Green Card program was a complete success," a spokesperson for the ministry told Deutsche Welle. "We have given out 14,400 Green Cards. If seven percent of these (Green Card holders) are now unemployed, then that is seven percent too many, but it is still a success when one considers how deep the current crisis in the IT industry currently is."
The spokesperson added that the program was introduced when the IT industry was still booming. The fact that some were now unemployed was simply "a sign of developments in the market, not a sign of the program's failure."
The author of the ministry’s study also warned that Germany -- which has a declining birth rate -- is dependent on immigrants for its future economic success. That could mean the country may have to fall back on the very foreigners they had just forced to leave after loosing their jobs, the report concluded.