Germany wants to recruit skilled workers from India on a large scale with concrete simplifications due to an expected labor shortage of 7 Million till 2035. To this end, an India skilled worker strategy will be presented at the German-Indian government consultations in the autumn, as Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil announced after a meeting with Indian students at the Free University of Berlin.
This skilled worker strategy is being developed jointly with the German Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Labor, German business, the provinces, and other departments. The aim is to send a clear signal to India that bright minds and helping hands are welcome in Germany as confirmed by the Labor Minister.
“We want to show how it works in one country, in a large country. How we deal with the acceleration of visa issuance, how we deal with the question of recruitment in various areas, what tasks the economy has, what initiatives the various federal states have. All of this should be bundled.
India is an important country in that it not only has the largest population in the world but also because 1.5 million additional people enter the labor market in India every month. There are many young people there”.
Statement by Mr. Heil
German labor market needs skilled workers
During the exchange with Indian students, Heil emphasized that the German labor market faces major challenges due to the country’s demographic structure. Germany will need seven million skilled workers by 2035 to meet demand, said the SPD politician, citing a study by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB).
In their discussion with the Minister of Labor, the students mentioned the German health system, opportunities for a better salary, and the quality of life and air as advantages of Germany. However, several doctoral students also expressed concern about science prospects here, which they perceive as uncertain. Bureaucracy and the state of digitalization were also mentioned as disadvantages.
Indian immigration to Germany?
Germany is becoming with time a hub of Indian immigrants. As per IW, between 2010 and 2020, the number of people with Indian citizenship in Germany rose from 48,000 to 151,000, and their share of the total foreign population increased from 0.7 percent to 1.6 percent.
An important point is that these numbers have increased much more after mid-2023. Most of the immigrated people are from the skilled professions of IT, Medical, Engineering and Science, etc.
The German government is making special efforts to accommodate the immigrants from India. The best example is at the German embassy in New Delhi, India, the waiting times for a national visa (including work visas) have now been reduced to two weeks. Significant efforts have been made amid the digitization and centralization of procedures involved in processing long-term visa applications.
What is Germany doing to overcome the labor shortage?
Germany has in recent times, made many extraordinary efforts to attract more and more skilled workers, especially from non-EU countries.
The federal government’s so-called growth initiative provides that “newly immigrated skilled workers can exempt 30, 20, and 10 percent of their gross wages from tax in the first three years.” A lower and upper limit for the gross wage will be defined for this exemption. The effect of this measure will be examined after five years.
In three different rounds of immigration rule changes, the federal government introduced ease in skilled worker visas, student visas, and trainee visas. On the other hand, a complete new jobs search visa opportunity card has also been introduced on 1 July 2024. New citizenship laws have also been introduced on 27 June 2024 with reduced stay duration such as 5 years in Germany.