2023-10-31 14:18:29
The federal government is expected to introduce new rules on Wednesday that will allow asylum seekers quicker access to the labor market. Government circles said on Tuesday that the cabinet should decide on a formulation aid for changes to the law, which would be docked into an ongoing legislative process in the Bundestag. The federal government hopes that this will result in higher employment for asylum seekers.
This should also relieve the burden on cities and municipalities when it comes to social benefits. Migration expert Herbert Brücker from the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) spoke of steps in the right direction, but warned against excessive expectations of the employment effects. “It’s not radical,” he told Reuters.
The work relief for asylum seekers and tolerated people is part of the migration package, the key points of which were agreed upon by the leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP in the traffic light government three weeks ago. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) introduced the first part in the cabinet last week with changes to the law that are intended to enable faster deportations of rejected asylum seekers.
work after six months
According to the draft available to the Reuters news agency, there are essentially three changes. In the future, asylum seekers in initial reception centers should be allowed to work after just six months instead of nine. The second change concerns the toleration that rejected asylum seekers can receive in the case of employment or training: Foreigners who came to Germany by December 31, 2022 should be able to benefit from this. Previously the deadline was August 31, 2018.
Thirdly, in the future, immigration authorities should generally give their consent to the employment of tolerated foreigners. At the moment, this is only an optional regulation that is at the discretion of the authority. “Shortening the employment ban is a right step, but it would have made more sense to shorten it to three months or to completely lift it,” said IAB migration expert Brücker.
The new deadline regulation for employment toleration is correct: “This significantly expands the circle of those who could benefit from it.” It is also positive that the issuance of an employment permit is no longer left to the discretion of the immigration authorities: “So far this has had a huge legal and “Planning uncertainty has been created, including for employers, and has been applied in very different ways.”
“As nationally uniform practice as possible”
The justification for the changes to the law states that the aim is to have “practice in the application of the regulation that is as uniform as possible across the country”. The immigration authorities could refuse permission if there are “atypical circumstances”. Maintaining a six-month ban on working for foreigners in initial reception centers is described in the draft as appropriate “to ensure that the asylum procedure can be carried out properly”.
In the first six months of this year, the immigration authorities denied a work permit in around 1,200 cases. This emerges from figures from the federal government, which go back to a regular request from Clara Bünger from the Left parliamentary group. As of June 30, 2023, almost 35,000 tolerated persons had an employment permit, of which around 3,100 were issued in the first half of the year. The work permit was rejected in 237 cases. Of the asylum seekers, there were around 21,000 with a work permit, of which a good 9,000 were granted in the first half of the year alone. 563 were rejected.
Katja Gelinsky, Berlin Published/Updated: Recommendations: 27 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 23 Helene Bubrowski, Lagos/Abuja and Jochen Buchsteiner, Rabat Published/Updated: Recommendations: 10
In addition to the change in the deadline, the draft provides for further relief for employment toleration. In the future, it will require previous employment subject to social security contributions for 12 instead of 18 months, and regular working hours must only be 20 instead of 35 hours per week. Other hurdles – such as fully securing one’s livelihood through one’s own means – remain high.
Recently, little use has been made of employment toleration: in mid-2023, 3,382 people, including family members, had employment toleration – of which 2,406 were employees. At the end of June 2023, there were 224,768 people with toleration who were required to leave the country.
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