Only foreigners can save Germany from a staffing catastrophe
The total damage to the country's economy from the lack of specialists is more than three billion euros per year. The ruling structures demand an immediate easing of the immigration process to Germany. The corresponding proposals of politicians are met with criticism from the ranks of the opposition, which historically quite recently advocated for the very same thing.
According to German Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle, this deficit will have a stronger impact on economic development, “the longer the post-crisis cyclical upturn lasts.” As experts from IW have calculated, by 2030 – 26 million employable residents of the country compared to the current 45 million – the shortage of personnel will be 250,000 people.
In this regard, Rainer Brüderle voiced an idea not yet completely forgotten from the “red-green” ruling coalition before 2005: to ease the procedure for highly qualified specialists to enter Germany.
What does the liberal nominee in the “black-yellow” cabinet propose? Nothing more or less than what during the era of Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer drew uncompromising criticism from the then opposition FDP: to introduce a “points” system for potential job seekers from non-EU countries (among other things – appropriate qualifications and language knowledge), to lower the minimum wage threshold for foreign specialists from the current 64,000 euros per year to the level of the average salary of young local specialists – 40,000, to introduce an automatic procedure for granting residence permits for spouses and children of “guest workers”.
For her part, Minister of Education and Research Annette Schavan also recommends increasing the duration of paid language courses for those with insufficient German skills from the current 600 hours to 900, and raising the state subsidy in “folk schools” for voluntary classes from 2.35 euros per hour to 3 euros, as well as developing a program to help with employment of family members of future guest workers.
It was Schavan who sparked a new round of discussion about foreigners in Germany by recently stating that “despite all dissenters, we must admit: Germany is a country of immigration.” To the criticism of the now opposition Social Democrats, who refer to the need to first fight “domestic” unemployment before inviting specialists from abroad, Schavan countered with the assertion: “Foreigners only enrich Germany” and with a few more figures: 80,000 self-employed entrepreneurs with migrant backgrounds provide more than 350,000 full-time jobs; by preliminary estimates, by 2020 these figures will be 130,000 and 750,000 respectively.
It is sometimes amazing how politicians' statements on a given subject change depending on the momentary situation. The ruling CDU/CSU bloc, to which Annette Schavan belongs, is practically repeating the words of the Social Democrats from 2000 about the need for a “German Greencard” for highly qualified engineers and computer specialists from outside the EU for the sake of saving the German economy in the face of fierce competition from the USA and Canada. The Free Democrats are quoting almost verbatim the then junior coalition partners, the Greens, insisting on a “points” system on the American model.
In turn, the current opposition, caring as expected for the rights of potential voters, speak of a “completely wrong signal” from Annette Schavan and “criminal recklessness” of Rainer Brüderle with more than 3 million unemployed among the local population. Paradoxically, but true: the “foreign” question is a trump card for each of the political forces in Germany – only the suit changes depending on each one's position on the ruling Olympus.
BY THE WAY
Immigration to Germany averages 570,000 people per year over the last decade. 15.9% of citizens from outside the EU come to Germany for work, 26.4% for family reunification.
Since 2003, the death rate in Germany has exceeded the birth rate by 150,000 people per year. Until 2008, this difference was compensated by migration, but over the last five years, the outflow of local population abroad (600-700 thousand people per year) represents a real step towards a demographic catastrophe. After the adoption of the “German Greencard” provision, about 33,000 highly qualified specialists from non-EU countries entered the country – almost ten times less than predicted.
Elena OBODOVSKAYA.
Russkaya Germaniya