Germany: 288,000 foreign workers needed annually until 2040

Despite recent reforms to labour migration law, Germany is still facing a severe deficit in skilled workers. A new study has found that this will have to be filled by immigrants.

Germany‘s workforce could shrink by 10% by 2040 without “substantial” immigration, according to a study commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation.

The study found that, without an influx of around 288,000 skilled foreign workers per year, the size of the German workforce could drop from around 46.4 million currently to 41.9 million in 2040. By 2060, it could drop as low as 35.1 million.

“The departure of the baby boomers from the labour market presents big challenges,” said Susanne Schultz, migration expert at Bertelsmann.

Schultz said that Germany’s domestic potential needs to be further developed and increased, but also that “this demographic shift demands immigration.”

A second projection model, based on more pessimistic data, calculated that as many as 368,000 immigrant workers could be required annually until 2040, dropping to 270,000 per year after that until 2060.

Are Germany’s labour migration reforms enough?

With labour migration currently lagging below-required levels, Schultz said that barriers needed to be removed and conditions for immigrants improved.

Germany’s labour migration laws were reformed in 2023 to make it easier and more attractive for qualified foreign workers to take up positions in Germany, with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser promising “the most modern immigration law in the world.”

Releasing its new study, however, the Bertelsmann Foundation said those foreign workers wouldn’t come “without a more welcoming culture throughout local authorities and businesses,” and without “the perspective of staying long-term.”

‘I want equality but I won’t beg for it’

One example cited by Germany’s DPA news agency offers food for thought.

The outlet quoted a Syrian refugee who fled the civil war in his native country in 2016, aged 21, before graduating from universities in western Germany with bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Now an IT specialist, trained in Germany, he is moving to Switzerland.

“I gave my very best here to be considered an equal but I felt discrimination and rejection,” he said, recounting denigration in social circles and part-time work while waiting for an acceptable job offer which never came.

“I want to be treated as an equal,” he said. “But I’m not going to beg for it.”

For Bertelsmann’s Schultz, the case is “unfortunately not an anomaly. Germany can’t afford that and must become more attractive.”