Scattering qualified specialists is an unforgivable luxury for Germany. But paradoxically, many holders of university degrees, including representatives of professions that are in short supply in Germany—engineers and programmers—cannot find suitable work.
Elena S., 32, met her Wolfgang in Moscow, where he had come as a business partner of the firm where the girl worked as a legal consultant. Thus began an international romance that was not destined to end in a happy ending. Having achieved success in her homeland, confident in her abilities, Elena expected that finding a job in Germany would not be difficult for her, especially since she had studied German quite successfully both at school and at university. Elena was forced to change her views on the future by the refusal to recognize her diploma. “I didn’t think long, packed my things and went back to Moscow. Why live where you are not valued?” Elena explains and adds with a smile, “And I wouldn’t have made a housewife anyway.”
The numerous stories of “unrequited love” between qualified emigrants and the German labor market have much in common. They are educated and eager for recognition; he is cold and unapproachable. Of course, not all holders of foreign diplomas in Germany become loaders and dishwashers. But how many potential professional cadres does the German economy lose in the faces of those who suffer such an unenviable fate!
According to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), today almost 19% of highly qualified foreigners are unemployed. Among late resettlers, this figure exceeds 43%. At the same time, German employer associations continue to insist on attracting additional labor from abroad. Individual members of the German parliament are also calling for opening the German market to residents of Central and Eastern Europe and softening the minimum income requirements for foreign specialists wishing to work in Germany.
But this initiative finds support neither from the current government, which advocates “integration instead of emigration,” nor from representatives of research centers who approach employment issues from a scientific perspective. The “overseas” minds so desired by German industrialists are already here, experts assure. The only thing left is to discern the hidden potential in degree-holding emigrants and give them a chance to realize it.
Many foreigners who come to Germany for permanent residence already have a university education and many years of work experience, but in their new homeland they often find themselves unneeded. One of the problems that qualified emigrants still have to face is the notorious bureaucracy. Confirming qualifications obtained outside Germany, due to various discrepancies in the education system, often turns out to be an impossible task for foreign specialists. As a result, instead of working in their field, realizing their talents and professional experience, the newly minted German burghers regularly visit job centers or, at best, take on low-prestige and low-paying jobs. In most cases, the only way not to trade their qualifications, academic degrees, and work experience for the position of a laundress or laborer is to sit back at the school desk and get a German diploma. But not everyone can afford such an adventure, which can put an end to aimless drifting between unemployment and low-paying work. At a mature age, it is difficult to start from scratch, especially when there is no confidence that this is the beginning of that very happy ending.
Irina G. is now 52. When she left Kazakhstan for distant Germany seven years ago forever, she hoped to leave behind the domestic disorder and regain her beloved job, which she, like many of her compatriots, had lost in the early 90s. But starting from scratch did not work out. A process engineer with many years of work experience, Irina could not find a job in Germany for a long time, and she had no strength to take up textbooks again. “I wanted to quickly wash off the stigma of being a dependent,” she recalls. Overcoming her inner resentment, Irina first took a job as a maid in a hotel, and for the last few years she has been working as a nanny caring for frail elderly people. The work is hard but well-paid. Only a dusty university diploma now reminds of her glorious working past for the benefit of Soviet industry.
The easiest to adapt and deviate from the beaten path are young people. Moving to Germany, young people harbor no special illusions about rapid career growth and “easy money.” They are ready for radical changes in their lives and do not fall into depression when unforeseen circumstances interfere with the planned course of life.
Valentin V., 26, is a classic example of the generation of Germans who, having received the status of late resettlers, came to conquer their historical homeland. He has been in Germany for just recently, a little less than a year, but he is already familiar with its bureaucratic realities firsthand. Without a hint of regret in his voice and even with irony, the young man tells how he turned from a “double master” into a school teacher. At Zaporozhye University, Valentin earned a bachelor's degree in teaching foreign languages and two more diplomas—as a translator and a financier. In Germany, only the bachelor's degree was recognized. Now Valentin can work in his specialty—teach at a school—but this is not how he imagined his professional future when he received one higher education diploma after another.
However, Valentin was internally prepared for such a turn of events. He is young, full of energy, and does not despair. Now the unrecognized master's degree holder is going to enroll in a German university to study economics in German and finally gain recognition in the world of debit and credit. The young man looks to the future with confidence and does not believe that he wasted his time sitting on university benches. Language skills and basic knowledge of the subject are a good start, if not for professional life, then certainly for university life.
Of course, some holders of foreign diplomas, academic degrees and titles can still apply in Germany for a position corresponding to their professional level, decent pay, and recognition in academic and business circles. However, the conquest of the German labor market is always preceded by a number of formal but important rituals. Thus, the Federal Government and the state governments have clearly defined a number of professions to which foreign specialists whose professional level meets the requirements existing in Germany are admitted. These include, for example, doctors, teachers, lawyers, engineers, etc. Decisions on the 'professional aptitude' of graduates of foreign higher and vocational education institutions are made by the competent authorities of the federal states. Moreover, the rules for recognizing foreign diplomas, academic degrees and titles, as well as the list of professions requiring official confirmation, may vary in different states. In those areas of activity for which the state or individual states do not provide such a control system, the assessment of the professional level of a potential employee is carried out by the employer himself.
Despite some obvious shortcomings of the system within which the certification of foreign specialists is carried out in Germany, the leadership of the Central Office for Foreign Education (Zentralstelle fr auslndisches Bildungswesen, ZAB) is convinced that compliance with a number of formalities is necessary to maintain quality standards in the most socially important service sectors, such as education or healthcare.
But even language skills and a confirmed higher education do not guarantee success in climbing the career ladder. German employers have still not gotten rid of prejudices against graduates of non-German universities. Many of them are firmly convinced that an academic degree obtained abroad, especially in the former Soviet republics, is not in itself a guarantee of professionalism.