Energy prices and inflation are weighing heavily on the German economy. Some companies have cut back their production because they are no longer economical. The President of the Federation of German Industries, Siegfried Russwurm, explains that energy prices, which have skyrocketed since the Russian attack on Ukraine at the end of February, are a handicap for German companies in international competition. “The risk of emigration is real.”
There is also another problem that has been discussed for years but has not been solved: the skills shortage. The warnings have been part of the standard repertoire of business speeches for over forty years. Politicians are reacting – not for the first time – with the idea of letting people work longer. Last weekend, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) told the Funke newspapers: “It is important to increase the proportion of those who can really work until retirement age.” In fact, many people today are already 63 or 64 years old, several years earlier the standard retirement age from the labor market, as can be seen from calculations by the Federal Institute for Population Research. The Chancellor called for the expansion of all-day offers in crèches, day-care centers and schools in order to increase the proportion of women in the labor market. He pointed to forecasts, according to which by the year In 2035 there will probably be a shortage of seven million skilled workers in Germany be and stressed the need for immigration“to ensure our prosperity”.
The solution to the shortage of skilled workers with the help of immigration follows the demographic situation. The population in Germany is getting older, baby boomers are retiring and there is a lack of young people. But immigration is a political hot potato. The very word “immigration” is the avoidance of its twin “immigration”, which was not politically wanted. CDU and CSU, but also SPD have them 90s slogan “The boat is full” varied in different formulations. The linguist Jürgen Trabant wrote in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” in 2014: “Immigrants are a euphemism – only more subtly mendacious than guest workers, it is a politically cowardly word. Access is something different from entry, ‘to’ only leads to something, not into something. The immigrant doesn’t get as close to the people as the immigrant.” The political debate or its anxious avoidance has mobilized citizens and carried the AfD into German parliaments.
Against this background, the Federal Chancellor is defending the plans of the traffic light coalition facilitate naturalization in Germany. “For a long time, those who immigrated to Germany were treated as if they would leave the country again later – obtaining citizenship was not the priority,” said Scholz. “But we have long been an immigration country and now want to bring it into line with international standards.”
“The history of German immigration policy is closely linked to the development of the German labor market and the strategies chosen,” says a memorandum by the Federal Institute for Vocational Training. “The terms ‘seasonal workers’, ‘foreign workers’, ‘guest workers’, ‘refugees’ and ‘immigration of skilled workers’ not only mark important contemporary historical stages in the history of the German Migration policybut also illustrate the ambivalent development of Germany from a country of emigration to a country of immigration.”
The increase in the number of refugees caused by the war in Ukraine has once again crossed the load limits of German municipalities with hopes for qualified workers. Some attack emergency shelters, others advocate easier access to the labor market. Targeted recruitment and humanitarian admission are lumped together, arguments fall short of one another, Germany is trying to deal with refugees.
Sources: Red./dpa/reuters/afp/ap/epd/kna
Image source: dpa