Germany’s labor market is under severe pressure, and the recent influx of Ukrainian refugees is unlikely to
solve the country’s workforce issues in the long term.
Aside from Poland, Germany has taken in more refugees than any other region since Russia invaded
Ukraine one year ago. The conflict has ravaged swathes of Ukraine and seen eight million people leave in
search of safety. Over a million of these Ukrainian refugees have been recorded as arriving in Germany, a
country that has warmly welcomed them, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying it will help Ukraine for “as
long as it takes.”
The arrival of these often highly educated Ukrainians could bring benefits for Germany, particularly when it comes to bolstering its workforce. Sylvain Broyer, chief EMEA economist at S&P Global Ratings, said the
presence of refugees would be “positive” for the Germany economy right now. “Definitely Germany faces
major shortages of labor and needs immigrants and Ukrainians,” Professor Panu Poutvaara, director of the
Ifo Center for International Institutional Comparisons and Migration Research told CNBC. “If I compare to
the previous asylum seekers, Ukrainians are clearly better educated and have integrated much faster into
the German labor market,” he added, noting that Germany is an attractive country for people looking to
join the labor market.
Even though the qualifications of this group are higher than those of other refugees, a large number of
courses are needed for refugees from Ukraine so that they can take advantage of job opportunities in
Germany in the near future.
The Berufliches Fortbildungszentrum der Bayrischen Wirtschaft (bfz) gGmbH (Vocational Training Centre of
the Bavarian Economy) is an example of this, providing concrete and practice-oriented support with free
language courses on the one hand, but also with support in determining competences, with recognition
and qualification counselling or with questions about further training.In the federal state of Bavaria, this
support takes place at 19 locations or 150 training sites. Other federal states also provide support.
In general, it must be said that practice-oriented and target group-oriented qualification is of great
importance for the successful integration of refugees from Ukraine.
In this regard, the new ACTION e-platform includes four training modules on:
● Experiential tourism: methodology and good practices
● Social media and development of a social media campaign
● Social skills and management of tourist services
● Programming languages useful for the labor market