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Germany needs new talent for its labor market — and fresh ideas to ensure that foreign workers not only come, but also stay. New initiatives are now emerging to help businesses and skilled workers.

Guido Seifen is the managing director of the medium‑sized German company, Omexom Hochspannung, which employs around 500 people and builds major power lines. He said it has become increasingly difficult to find skilled workers in Germany for the widely dispersed construction sites. After all, the job often means giving up family life and a stable home during the week.

Seifen now hopes to recruit new skilled workers in Vietnam through a German‑Vietnamese development cooperation project. Vietnam is currently transitioning to renewable energy and is receiving support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). What Germany needs are overhead line technicians — and Vietnam's electricity provider EVN has set up a dedicated training center to prepare workers for exactly that role.

Omexom wants to contribute its experience and expertise to the project. The company plans to bring EVN's Vietnamese instructors to Germany for training, enabling them to deliver instruction that meets local standards, including certification from the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce. At the training center in Vietnam, GIZ is also establishing German language courses. In the end, enough technicians are to be trained so that roughly half of them can be offered jobs in Germany — up to 200, Seifen said, calling it a "win‑win situation."

WE‑Fair alliance for the fair recruitment of skilled workers

Attracting foreign skilled workers to Germany while at the same time strengthening training structures and transferring knowledge in their countries of origin — these are the kinds of projects the federal government aims to support. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) already works with many partners to train skilled workers, and now German industry is expected to join. The newly established alliance is called the "WE‑Fair alliance for the fair recruitment of skilled workers."

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"Germany needs qualified skilled workers," said Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan at the launch in Berlin. The country is aging rapidly. "The projections are clear: more than 20% of employees in Germany are at least 55 years old, and will retire within the next 10 years." Demographic researchers have calculated that Germany will need 400,000 foreign skilled workers each year over the next decade to fill the gaps. To reach that number, around 1.6 million people would have to immigrate to Germany annually.

Engaging with countries of origin on equal terms

"Recruitment from countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is becoming increasingly important for the German economy," said Alabali Radovan. The populations there are young, often well-educated and continue to grow. "Many young people in those countries are also looking for opportunities beyond their borders. The governments of these countries expect us, as the German federal government, to create and strengthen pathways for skilled migration."

Placement is to take place according to transparent rules and be subject to oversight. This includes providing information on working conditions, wages and required qualifications. Training programs should prepare participants both for their home countries and for Germany. Costs and risks are to be shared, and potential skilled workers should be able to cover the costs of further training, or relocation.

German companies underestimate what it takes

"We often see companies assuming they will get a fully trained employee whom they can deploy immediately," said Edith Otiende‑Lawani, a Kenya‑born managing director of a consulting firm who, through her association Giving Africa a New Face, supports the integration of migrants in the Munich area. "The fairy‑tale notion is that people will arrive already speaking German, integrate quickly, be resilient and be enthusiastic about Germany and everything that comes with it," said Otiende‑Lawani. But that's not the reality.

"It's not about forming a grammatically correct sentence — it's about the fact that communication and leadership in German companies work differently," added Gerhard Hain, who advises German businesses on intercultural matters. Even in everyday life, there are many hurdles that are difficult to overcome. "You have to be prepared for people who approach things differently from Germans in roughly 80% of cases."

People also need a great deal of patience while they wait to come to Germany. Because of the enormous bureaucracy, it often takes years before a foreign skilled worker can actually start working in this country. Markus Lötzsch, chief executive of the Nuremberg Chamber of Industry and Commerce, has many stories to tell on the subject. Too many different authorities are responsible, and the immigration offices — especially in large cities — are chronically overburdened.

There are disappointments even with so‑called "express procedures," Lötzsch explained. "Through our Welcome Desk, for example, we work with the immigration authorities as part of the accelerated skilled‑worker process. 'Accelerated skilled‑worker process' sounds great — it promises that everything will move quickly, and you even pay extra for it. So you assume it will actually be faster, but often that's not the case at all."

To provide relief, the Chamber of Commerce is investing money and staff to take over tasks such as the preliminary review of all required documents. "The immigration authority knows the documents come from a trusted partner, and then the process goes through more smoothly," Lötzsch told DW.

Skilled workers are leaving again

"We shouldn't only talk about people coming — we should also talk about them staying," Lötzsch added. In 2024, for the first time, more people left Germany than moved to the country. Again and again, foreign skilled workers return to their home countries or move on to other places because their expectations in Germany were not met.

For entrepreneur Jasmin Arbabian-Vogel, much of this has to do with Germans' attitudes toward immigrants. Germany is still attractive for foreign skilled workers. "But if we want to remain attractive, then the question is directly tied to how we treat the immigrants who are already here in the country," she said.

Arbabian-Vogel runs a care and social services company in Hanover with 250 employees. Many of them are foreigners. "These are refugees and people who simply immigrated here at some point. Companies like mine, and many others as well, train them — only to later find out that they have just received a deportation notice, which basically means: it was nice working with you, but now goodbye," she said. Germany needs to adopt a different political and societal "mindset" toward immigrants. If that does not happen, the skilled‑worker alliance cannot succeed.

Author Sabine Kinkartz

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