German Economy NEEDS Immigrants: OECD
Please note that we are not authorised to provide any investment advice. The content on this page is for information purposes only.
The OECD has found that in just 10 years, the number of people leaving the labor market in Germany
will be up to 75 percent higher than the number entering the labor market.
Among the 28 industrialized countries surveyed, Germany wound up dead last.
The reasons listed by the OECD are simple.
On the one hand, German society is aging quickly.
The OECD has found that in just 10 years, the number of people leaving the labor market in Germany
will be up to 75 percent higher than the number entering the labor market.
Among the 28 industrialized countries surveyed, Germany wound up dead last.
The reasons listed by the OECD are simple.
On the one hand, German society is aging quickly.
Its birth rate is nowhere near high enough to replace the number of people entering retirement age.
On the other, immigration to Germany has stagnated,
with the country having experienced a net population loss in recent years as a result of emigration.
According to the OECD, it is not a trend that will be easy to reverse.
The organization says that raising the retirement age and reducing unemployment will not be enough.
Instead, the group says, increasing immigration — from both within and outside of the European Union — might be the only solution.
Already, there are indications that the German labor market is short of highly qualified workers.
As the economy rapidly recovers from the economic crisis — the country’s economy is forecast to grow by 3.4 percent this year —
several branches have been complaining of difficulties in finding qualified applicants for job vacancies.
According to the Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media,
Germany’s leading high-tech industry organization, some 28,000 jobs in the tech field are CURRENTLY unfilled.
As early as March, the consulting firm McKinsey released a study forecasting that German firms will have difficulties filling open positions in just five years time.
By 2020, the study found, the lack of qualified workers for open positions could be as high as 2 million.
Chancellor Angela Merkel says the focus should be on reintegrating the long-term unemployed back into the labor market.
But many argue that line of thinking is illusory.
“Specialists for jobs needing high qualifications are hardly to be found among this group,”
said Frank-Jürgen Weise, head of Germany’s Federal Employment Agency, referring to the long-term unemployed.
The OECD likewise sees little chance that long-term unemployed will be able to fill the growing hole.
Instead, the organization suggests that a point system similar to the one used by Canada and other countries, designed to attract highly qualified immigrants, is unavoidable.
But a point system would likely warm hearts in some parts of the German government.
The business-friendly Free Democrats, Merkel’s junior coalition partners, have long supported the introduction of such a system.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats, however, have so far demurred, according to this article in Spiegel Online.
