An analysis by the independent Bertelsmann Foundation has sounded the alarm that Europe’s biggest economy will need thousands of additional workers from abroad to thrive.
The German labour market will be heavily dependent on immigrants from abroad in upcoming years, an independent report has shown.
According to the study from the independent Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany’s labour force could shrink by 10% by 2040 without “substantial” immigration.
According to the think tank’s analysis, around 288,000 international workers are needed in order to sustain Germany’s workforce.
Without additional international workers entering the labour market, the number of workers in Germany would fall from its current 46.4 million to 41.9 million.
Susanne Schultz, migration expert at the Bertelsmann Foundation, said that the “retirement of baby boomers” is a key factor in Germany’s workforce shrinking.
She says that although the priority is to develop the domestic workforce, “this alone will not be enough to meet future labour demand up to 2040”.
A second model is less pessimistic, but still calculates that as many as 368,000 foreign workers could be required per year until 2040.
Attracting foreign workers
In 2023, Germany reformed its immigration laws to make it easier for qualified foreign workers to take up positions, including introducing a “blue card” for qualified specialists and reducing bureaucracy around recognising foreign degrees.
Schultz says, however, that obstacles remain that should be removed in order to attract workers.
In its report, the Bertelsmann foundation said that foreign workers wouldn’t come “without a more welcoming culture throughout local authorities and businesses”.
The German government has taken other steps in order to address its workforce shortage, such as striking a controlled migration deal with Kenya in September in order to invite Kenyan workers into the country.
“We want to attract qualified workers, who we urgently need in many areas of our economy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said after the deal was made.
According to the report, a foreign worker shortage would hit the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia the hardest, and would heavily affect southern regions such as Bavaria.
Major cities that already have high levels of immigration, such as Berlin and Hamburg, would be less badly stressed, according to the study.
The study shows that workers are most needed in the southwestern Saarland as well as in the states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.
Thuringia, a state in central Germany, has seen gains for the strongly anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party, who topped the polls for the first time in September’s regional elections.
