Continued high staffing needs – government launches immigration reform
Berlin There is little dispute in the traffic light coalition on one issue because all sides recognize the urgency: This Wednesday, the Federal Cabinet intends to pass the bill by Labor Minister Hubertus Heil and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (both SPD) on the immigration of skilled workers. With the implementation of the measures, it should be possible to recruit an additional 60,000 workers from third countries every year Germany pick up.
The need is there. The Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research (IAB) had almost two million job vacancies in the final quarter of last year – an all-time high. And the employment barometer of the Munich Ifo Institute, which is calculated monthly exclusively for the Handelsblatt, shows a continuing need for personnel.
The indicator, which is based on the employment intentions of around 9,000 companies, rose to 99.9 points in March, after 99.4 points in the previous month. “The labour market is very robust,” said Ifo expert Klaus Wohlrabe, who heads the surveys at the economic research institute.
Employment growth is mainly driven by the service sector. There will be more recruitment here, says Wohlrabe. In contrast, there is not much momentum in the manufacturing sector, even if the sub-indicator was able to pick up again after a small setback in the previous month. In particular, energy-intensive industries such as chemicals were reluctant to hire new staff.
There is also reluctance to increase employment in retail, which the Ifo Institute attributes to consumers’ reluctance to buy. The retail association HDE is expecting the biggest drop in sales this year since the global financial crisis of 2009 due to high inflation. In construction, hiring and firing plans are roughly balanced.
Expand Western Balkans regime
With the reform of immigration law, the federal government wants, among other things, to give more weight to professional experience and to dispense with lengthy recognition procedures for degrees. In addition, interested parties should be able to come to Germany via a new points system to look for a job.
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The FDP-Member of the Bundestag Ann-Veruschka Jurisch has already announced that her parliamentary group wants to further optimize the draft law in the parliamentary process. “Our focus will be in particular on extending the Western Balkans regulation to other countries with migration agreements, further simplifications of procedures and fine-tuning the point system.”
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