As of today, there are 461,000 job vacancies in Germany
According to the Federal Employment Agency, there are currently 461,000 job vacancies in Germany. However, the head of the Federation of German Employers, Dieter Hundt, believes this figure is greatly underestimated, as not all employers officially register their vacancies. Hundt estimates that Germany actually needs at least one million workers. Most needed are in the technical field and in fields related to natural sciences. The Federal Republic also lacks specialists in nursing and elderly care.
But the lifting of all restrictions on labor migrants from Eastern European countries as of May 1 is causing concern in Germany about an influx of labor – particularly from Poland. According to the Nuremberg Institute for Labor Market Research, around 100,000 labor migrants from Central and Eastern Europe already arrive in Germany each year. Even if this rate continues, their number could reach between 600,000 and 900,000 by 2020. As for Poland, there are already between 400,000 and 600,000 Polish labor migrants in Germany, both legally and illegally. And a number of German labor experts fear that many employers, unable to resist the temptation to "save money," will begin to take on workers en masse without proper documentation, or simply put, hire them "off the books," or legally but at dumping wages.
However, German Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Ursula von der Leyen considers such fears unfounded: "We have prepared a number of measures aimed at combating the spread of 'off-the-books' work and the reduction of overall wage levels. To avoid this, inspections will be conducted more frequently in the construction sector, the cleaning industry, the gastronomy sector, and the area of care for the elderly and ill. And in any case, there will be no influx of migrants taking advantage of our social system in Germany."
Meanwhile, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble called for the urgent introduction of fixed minimum wages in sectors where they have not yet been introduced. At the same time, Schäuble sternly warned potential "schemers" that the authorities monitoring illegal employment will expand their staff by as many as 350 new employees in the coming years. This seems like a drop in the ocean compared to the expected influx of labor migrants, who no longer face any restrictive barriers.
Nevertheless, Ursula von der Leyen remains optimistic on this point: "It's not that we lack jobs, but workers. And labor migrants are in most cases young, educated, and mobile specialists," she states. That they are mobile and young is possible. But against the background of what the minister said, a warning issued these days by the leaders of the Trade Union of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Latvia sounds somewhat dissonant. They, apparently aware of public sentiment, called on Latvian residents heading to work in Germany "not to allow a significant lowering of wages and working conditions just because the worker came to work from Latvia, and under no circumstances to work without an employment contract, and not to receive all or part of their salary in an envelope, evading taxes."
Сергей ДЕБРЕР.
