Among the largest industrialized countries, Germany became the second state after the United States in terms of the number of foreigners, leaving behind Great Britain and Japan. On the European continent, Germany simply has no equal in terms of immigrant influx. Although in percentage terms relative to the indigenous population, foreigners are most numerous in Luxembourg and Switzerland, it is clear that in these cases we are talking more often about wealthy people than about those who left their homeland in the hope of finding decently paid work and giving their children an education.
Overall, according to OECD data, in the early years of the 21st century people moved from country to country much more actively than before. A distinctive feature of this growth was the reasons generated by globalization, which also represents a completely new phenomenon. Most of the new immigrants are highly qualified specialists, as well as employees of international corporations who periodically change their country of residence in accordance with the principle of rotation.
As OECD experts note, there is de facto a kind of competition among developed countries for the best foreign specialists. This is especially true in such areas as information technology, biotechnology, healthcare, as well as the sphere of upbringing and work with children. But in European countries such as Spain and Greece, foreign workers, following the example of the US and Australia, are mainly expected by farmers. In Italy, Portugal, and Great Britain, immigrants are in high demand for work on construction sites and in the sphere of care for the sick and the elderly.
OECD conclusions concerning all industrialized countries: integration measures are insufficient. This applies both to language courses and other types of assistance - of course, for those categories of immigrants who need it. And they are still the majority. Not all EU countries can afford such a long and costly, although reliable, path as educating young foreigners in higher education. Well-educated foreigners, as a rule, have no problems either with language or with employment.
European demographers place their hopes on them, predicting a catastrophic shortage of labor in industrialized countries already in the coming decades. According to many specialists, the current European unemployment will be replaced by a severe shortage of workers on the labor market. The only source of replenishment of this market is immigrants. And Europe is in fact no less interested in them than they are in it.