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Nahles at the announcement of the labor market figures from December
Photo: Daniel Löb / dpa
The influx of a large number of refugees in 2015 and 2016 helped to alleviate the shortage of staff in Germany, according to the head of the Federal Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles.
In their opinion, the current acute shortage of labor in the German economy would have become much earlier and more noticeable without the refugee movement.
The former SPD party leader said this on the sidelines of a meeting with members of the SPD parliamentary group in Munich.
"It was announced much longer," said Nahles.
In 2015 and 2016, more than a million people from countries such as Syria and Iraq applied for asylum in Germany.
According to statistics from the Federal Agency, in June 2022 almost 190,000 people with Syrian nationality were employed and subject to social security contributions.
There are also more than 60,000 people with Iraqi nationality.
In a 2020 study, researchers at the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) came to the conclusion that the integration of refugees into the labor market after 2016 was more successful than with earlier migration movements.
About half of those who stayed in Germany for at least four years also had a job.
According to the study, there were deficits, especially among women.
migration controversy
The current migration policy is currently being discussed controversially.
The labor shortage in the economy is offset by bottlenecks in housing and financing.
Municipalities in particular complain about the lack of quarters for newcomers.
In 2022, 217,000 initial applications for asylum were made in Germany, around a third of them from people from Syria alone.
A bloody civil war has been raging in the country since 2011.
The second largest number of applications came from people from Afghanistan, followed by Turkey.
In addition, there are around one million war refugees from Ukraine.
mamk/dpa-AFX
