Refugees
won’t plug German labor gap
Few
refugees from Syria and other war zones have vocational training or a
degree.
By JANOSCH
DELCKER AND MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG 1/6/16, 7:34 PM CET Updated 1/7/16,
6:35 PM CET
BERLIN
— For Germany’s economy, the influx of up to 1.1 million refugees
last year should be a godsend.
With
Europe’s lowest birthrate and a rapidly aging population, Germany
could lose its standing as one of the world’s leading economies.
Refugees could fill the gap.
There’s
just one problem: most lack the skills German companies need.
“Let’s
not delude ourselves,” said Ludger Wößmann, director of
Munich-based Ifo Center for the Economics of Education. “From
everything we know so far, it seems that the majority of refugees
would first need extensive training and even then it’s far from
certain that it would work out.”
Even as Germany’s
economy has thrived in recent years, industry has warned of a looming
Fachkräftemangel, or skilled worker shortage. Without significant
immigration, the working-age population will likely decrease from
roughly 49 million in 2013 to somewhere between 34 and 38 million in
2060, according to a government estimate published in July.
The government’s
efforts to lure highly-skilled foreigners have largely fallen short.
With most of the
refugees unlikely to leave anytime soon, Germany may have no choice
but to invest in training.
Faced with those
pressures, finding ways to put the refugees to work quickly has
become a top priority for Angela Merkel’s government.
“We have more than
1 million vacancies, we have a need for qualified personnel, and more
than 50 percent of those who come to us are younger than 25,” Labor
Minister Andrea Nahles said in a recent interview with German public
television. “This could really work out.”
Yet some economists
argue that the refugees are unlikely to have much impact in the short
term.
Less than 15 percent
of refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries have completed
vocational training or a university degree, according to a September
2015 study by Germany’s Institute for Employment Research.
Even those with
training often don’t have the skills expected in Germany. On
average, an eighth-grader in pre-war Syria had a similar level to a
third-grade student in Germany, according to the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“Someone who comes
from Eritrea and says he was an electrician might have repaired a
radio or laid a cable there,” said Achim Dercks, deputy managing
director of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and
Commerce, “but he might have never seen a fuse box, as we use it in
Germany.”
With most of the
refugees unlikely to leave anytime soon, Germany may have no choice
but to invest in training.
On Wednesday, German
Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière described the task of
integrating those who have arrived so far as a “massive, long-term
undertaking.”
Much of the early
political debate about the refugees focused on how to integrate the
newcomers in order to preserve Germany’s culture and national
identity.
Now, many
politicians argue that finding them work is the easiest way to
achieve that goal. But that may force Germany to lower standards for
some qualifications and rethink rules that give precedence to German
and EU applicants.
“If we want to
make integration succeed, we will need much more flexibility in the
labor market,” Ifo’s Wößmann said. “We need reforms to reduce
bureaucratic barriers, including lowering the minimum wage in certain
cases. The alternative is that the majority of refugees remains
without work, and this would be an even greater burden for our social
system.”
The government is
already preparing for an additional 1 million recipients of its main
unemployment benefit, known as Hartz IV, by 2019.
A big worry among
Germany’s political establishment is that a failure to integrate
the refugees into the workforce would bolster the country’s
resurgent right-wing populists and further inflame social tensions.
German unemployment
is the lowest since reunification but one-fifth of unskilled laborers
are without work.
One hope is that
many of the younger refugees will find work through the country’s
vocational education system. During the courses, which usually last
for three years, trainees attend classes at a vocational school and
receive on-the-job training at a company.
The problem is that
almost half of all refugees coming to Germany are over 25 and are
unlikely to go through a formal three-year training program, simply
because they are too old.
Instead, they would
most likely join the ranks of the 20 percent unemployed among the
low- and unqualified workers of the country and compete for
low-skilled jobs.
Overall, German
unemployment is the lowest since reunification but one-fifth of
unskilled laborers are without work. In other words, the influx of
refugees is likely to further swell the ranks of the jobless
unskilled.
Despite those
challenges, many economists argue that Germany’s economy will
eventually wither without an extended phase of immigration.
If the carmakers and
engineering companies that propel German exports can’t get enough
qualified workers at home, they will simply go elsewhere.
To maintain the
current size of its labor force, Germany would need as many as
500,000 immigrants per year through 2050, a study by the Bertelsmann
Foundation concluded last year.
Immigration to
Germany has hovered around that level over the past couple of years,
as many Europeans relocated to Germany to escape the malaise in their
own countries. But with EU immigration expected to taper, some see
the influx of refugees as a blessing in disguise.
“This is a huge
opportunity for this country that could strengthen Germany’s
position in the global economy in the coming decades,” Deutsche
Bank Chief Economist David Folkerts-Landau told Die Welt last month.
“I could even imagine a cultural and economic renaissance.”
Authors:
Janosch Delcker and
Matthew Karnitschnig
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário