Immigration Woes

For the past few years, German companies, particularly IT firms, have been complaining about a lack of skilled personnel in Germany. There are at least 20,000 vacancies in this industry sector alone which cannot be filled without the help of foreign labor, including skilled workers from outside the European Union.

A green card scheme initiated by the former German government under Gerhard Schröder to lure skilled foreign labor to Germany largely flopped because of too many restrictions and barriers for applicants, including temporary residency permits and curbs on spouses being allowed to work.

On Friday, head of Bitkom, Bernhard Rohleder, said in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit that the problem wasn't the quality of IT education in German universities, but rather that the number of graduates -- some 14,000 yearly -- just wasn't enough to cover the number of jobs needed to be filled.

"Naturally much of what's needed should be tried and filled in Germany," Rohleder said. "But we have to be sure that we can fill the rest efficiently and at short notice with skilled workers from abroad."

Vacancies rampant in other sectors too

Tanja El-Cherkeh of the Hamburg-based Institute of International Economics said it isn't just employers in the IT industry wringing their hands over a dearth of a skilled labor.

"First there's the health sector where doctors, physiotherapists and pharmacists are needed," El-Cherkeh said. "Then importantly the engineering sector, in particular machine and aero plane construction. And then there's the services sector with insurance experts, qualified trade representatives and so on."

Though industry leaders in Germany routinely bemoan the dearth of qualified applicants in the country, the issue of loosening labor laws to allow outsiders to fill positions remains a sensitive one.

Former economics minister Wolfgang Clement, who’s now with the London-based Adecco Institute for Labor Research, said German lawmakers have to act swiftly to make it easier and more attractive for non-EU foreigners to work here. He added that this is in the interest of the whole nation.

"We’re all vying for the best brains in the world," Clement said. "Increasingly, the skills of companies’ workforces will be the decisive factor for economic success just as much as capital stock. We’ll be seeing a dramatic fight over skilled labor in the years ahead. And in an advanced economy like Germany’s, securing highly qualified staff is bound to become a make-or-break issue.”

New immigration law only a first step

Tanja El-Cherkeh said that the country’s first immigration law which came into force in January of last year was a step forward, but needs amending to ease conditions for foreign labor.

She adds that politicians who insist that vacancies should be filled by German workers first should realize that a new generation of better-trained employees will not be churned out by universities here overnight.

"The German labor market is not completely open because there are very high unemployment rates in Germany and this should be, according to some politicians, be filled by German workers," El-Cherkeh said. "There has been a very long debate in Germany on immigration. The new immigration law is actually only a beginning."

Yet, the issue of non-EU graduates from German universities entering the job market instance remains largely unresolved. Under the new immigration law, they have just one year to look for a job in Germany after finishing their studies.

But even if they’re lucky to get one, they have to earn at least 85,500 euros ($115,000) per year in order to stay here.

Now a number of conservative German lawmakers has indicated that they are willing to lower this threshold to 63,000 euros a year though industry heads want it slashed to half the current level.