Berlin is facing difficulty in finding workers to fill a significant gap threatening vital sectors and services, with 771,000 job vacancies. Steps are being taken to encourage skilled labor migration, especially from countries deemed semi-safe by German authorities, with very low refugee percentages and rich competencies, including some Arab countries.
Both the German Minister of Development, Stefania Schulte, and the Commissioner for Migration and Integration Affairs, Reem Al-Abul Radoofan, traveled to Morocco at the end of January to initiate two projects. The first project focuses on cultural and linguistic pre-integration to prepare candidates for migration before traveling, and the second involves launching a Moroccan center for migration and development to connect competencies with German companies, supervised by German organizations and institutions.
President of the Moroccan-German Competencies Network, Azeddine El Maâroufi, told Al Jazeera Net that talk of facilitating skilled labor migration is still premature as the agreement is still in the “intentions declaration” stage. However, he emphasized its importance, noting that Morocco and Germany previously signed a successful agreement in 1963 that enabled Germany to bring in a large number of Moroccan workers.
There are migration and development centers sponsored by the German Ministry of Development in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Jordan, as well as other non-Arab countries like Ghana, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Germany recently brought in healthcare workers from Tunisia under local agreements and recently signed a similar memorandum of intent with Jordan.
Germany recently brought in healthcare workers from Tunisia (Getty)
Skilled Worker Visa
To facilitate migration, the Berlin government recently amended visa laws, introducing a new law allowing skilled workers to quickly enter Germany, with conditions including:
- Obtaining a university degree or professional qualification (with a minimum of two years of professional experience) recognized in the home country.
- For regulated sectors like healthcare, education, and engineering, obtaining a German equivalency of the certificates is mandatory.
- Another important requirement is that the applicant must have a clear job offer in Germany or a work contract.
One of the significant changes in the law is that the migration candidate is not obliged to work in the same field of expertise, and the law will futurely work towards waiving the requirement for professional qualification recognition in Germany.
A spokeswoman for the Advisory Council for Integration and Immigration, an independent institution, stated that the law opens new opportunities in the skilled labor migration sector, expecting not to require proof of compatibility of qualifications of many skilled workers with German standards in the future.
She added that even workers without recognized qualifications in Germany now have the opportunity to come to Germany to seek work.
Job Search
Since 2020, Germany has been issuing job search visas for six months, with requirements including proficiency in the German language for those with professional qualifications, as well as financial security for living in Germany, conditions not present in skilled worker visas.
Authorities recently introduced an “opportunity card” for job seekers, an evaluation system similar to the Canadian system. It includes several criteria such as language skills (German and English), experience, knowledge of German laws, age, and family status. If the final score reaches or exceeds 6 points, the visa is granted.
However, according to observers, the problem lies in the inconsistent information among the official German websites, whether directly affiliated with the federal government or consulate websites abroad, especially in clarifying the requirement regarding university and professional certificates and how to ensure their equivalence in the German system or their accreditation for regulated professions.
Bureaucracy Threat
Many of these hopes are met with bureaucracy, long visa waiting times, and slow law enforcement, discouraging thousands of migration aspirants.
Tunisian labor market expert in Germany, Narges Al-Rahmani, told Al Jazeera Net that the problems currently persist, as many university certificates still require German equivalency. The “Anabin” database, which includes foreign certificates and educational institutions, is not updated, and obtaining a recognized German language certificate is still necessary, all of which take a lot of time and money, she said.
Al-Rahmani, who previously worked at the German Labor Office (Job Center), added that many company officials are not familiar with the new migration laws and face difficulties in signing contracts with individuals outside Germany or obtaining administrative permits. Authorities take a long time to verify contracts and documents, prolonging visa processing times, leading to possible rejections even if the documents are valid.
For her part, the spokeswoman for the Advisory Council for Integration and Immigration stated that the administrative structures of the German authorities do not work optimally everywhere, whether inside or outside Germany.
She added that migrant workers already wait several months to obtain entry visas, and therefore, if authorities wish to facilitate skilled labor migration, they must digitize work and hire more people, according to the speaker.
Digitization
Al-Rahmani sees no solution for Germany other than increasing staff in consulates and utilizing technological advancements to solve bureaucratic problems. She added that there is a need for other measures, including updating databases to enable quick decisions instead of going through ministries and government institutions, better communication with German companies and guiding them on new laws, in addition to the necessity of giving migration candidates the opportunity to improve their linguistic skills in Germany, considering this becomes challenging outside the country.
Azeddine El Maâroufi says the success of any agreement revolves around two important aspects:
- Enhancing cooperation and finding a balance for the benefit of both parties, the country of origin, and Germany, resolving complexities.
- Preparing the youth pre-migration in improving language skills and familiarizing themselves with the host country’s culture and labor market in Germany.
He noted that the Moroccan Competencies Association is working on a project for pre-integration support to assist competent individuals willing to migrate.
However, the objectives are not only meeting needs; the German government also links in its speeches between cooperation in facilitating skilled labor migration and repatriating irregular migrants.
El Maâroufi believes there is no connection between the two issues, as the number of irregular migrants from Maghreb countries in Germany is very low. However, he points out that one of the unannounced objectives is the cooperation to halt the crossing of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries to Europe.
