Germany needs 400,000 workers from abroad each year
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With growing concerns in Germany about the repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic, low birth rates, and a decreasing work force, the government seeks workers from abroad.
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Construction in Stuttgart, Germany. (AFP)
Germany's new coalition government plans to attract 400,000 qualified workers yearly from abroad to address the imbalance in the country's demography and shortages in the workforce in key sectors, in a way to avoid an uneven recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
"The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy," Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche.
Duerr added, "We can only get the problem of an aging workforce under control with a modern immigration policy... We have to reach the mark of 400,000 skilled workers from abroad as quickly as possible."
The new coalition government agreed on measures such as raising the national minimum wage to 12 euros ($13.60) per hour to attract foreign workers.
Low birth rates are another reason
As per The German Economic Institute, the workforce will decrease by more than 300,000 individuals this year; the reason is that there are more older workers retiring than younger ones entering the labor market.
The gap is expected to widen to more than 650,000 in 2029, which would accumulate the shortage in working individuals' number in 2030 to roughly 5 million.
After the country witnessed dozens of years of low birth rates and uneven migration, a decreasing workforce poses a demographic time bomb for the public pension system in Germany, as a decreasing number of employees is being burdened with the task of financing the pensions of an increasing number of retirees who have a long life expectancy.
