Why some skilled migrants are choosing Germany over North America

Admin I Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024

 

BERLIN – As Germany battles with a shortage of skilled labour, officials have resorted to travelling abroad to find the staff they need. High-tech professionals who come to Germany value the opportunities.
By Miriam Widman, dpa

German officials are scrambling to find more qualified workers for the many open jobs employers say they can’t fill with the existing work force.

They’ve visited Canada to learn how to attract more highly qualified immigrants and have eased immigration requirements for qualified professionals.

Without immigration, there would be an additional shortage of 442,000 of the so-called STEM specialists in Germany today, according to Axel Plünnecke, the head of a division dealing with education and migration at the Cologne-based German Economic Institute.

He was referring to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics professionals.

But some skilled workers who have come to Germany say they the government’s efforts have paid off – after thinking about going to the United States, Canada, England or elsewhere, they decided on Germany.

“The main reason for coming here among other countries is that it [Germany] seems like it wants skilled labour to come here,” said Neil, a 35-year-old engineer from India.

He and many others looked to the US and Canada first – mainly because of the language. Technology and engineering workers say English is the workplace language, many are fluent already and so going to an English-speaking country makes sense.

Big demand and barriers for US entry

But those countries don’t make it so easy to get in. The US, for example, has its H1-B visa programme – but it is a lottery system. For this year’s lottery, 758,994 applied and 188,400 got a visa – a rate of just under 25%. Neil thinks “the H1B needs to be changed.”

Marzan Sadek, a 31-year-old software engineer from Egypt, agreed, noting that it took his sister, who lives in the US, some 12 years to get a green card, or US permanent residency status.

Mahbubur Rahman, a software engineer from Bangladesh, said he thought about the US but decided against going there because of the gun violence. He said he’d read about someone from his country being gunned down at a gas station there.

Canada is a promising choice, but it has its issues too, some say. Sadek looked at Canada, but relocating to Europe meant he’d be closer to his family back in Cairo.

Vasha, a 29-year-old with an MBA, said she tried to apply to the US “but it’s much easier to come here [Germany].”

She looked at Canada, but it’s hard to find a job. Neil, the engineer from India, said Canada is open to immigrants, but many are going there after not getting their US visa renewed and the Canadian government is overwhelmed.

When considering Europe, why Germany?

Germany might not seem like an obvious choice, in part because of the language. Many tech workers come from South Asia, where English – not German – is taught from a very young age. Britain’s colonial history in this region has left some familiarity with British culture.

But the British economy is not doing well and several said it’s tough to find a job there. In the second quarter, the unemployment rate in the UK was 4.2% compared to Germany’s 3.4%.

“I tried and failed at multiple companies,” Sadek, the Egyptian engineer said of his efforts to get a job in the UK.

Others said they chose Germany because of the educational opportunities here.

For Thomas Binu, a 29-year-old with a BA in civil engineering from his native India and an MA in water management from the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus, it was a no-brainer to come to Germany because he got a scholarship and a stipend to study there.

“I thought of studying in the UK, the US, Canada or Australia but I couldn’t get a visa over there,” he says. Plus studying is expensive there.

A better work-life-balance

“Employee laws are in place here and there’s more value for family time,” said Prathamesh Sakpal, a 29-year-old from India who works for an e-commerce firm.

“There’s no required overtime and more vacation,” he said. In the US, for instance, two weeks of holidays is standard – and sometimes it is even less – and there is no national paid family leave.

Figures from the Berlin-Brandenburg statistical office show a whopping increase in immigrants from India. Ten years ago there were 3,579 registered in Berlin but last year that figure had exploded by nearly 10 times to 33,257. But it isn’t all rosy.

Housing can be difficult to find and racism and the rise of the far-right can be an issue for some. But many high-tech jobs are in big cities and foreign workers say they can find communities there that they want to join.

“International people have the same sense of community,” said Sakpal, the Indian e-commerce specialist. “It’s very difficult to find common topics with Germans,” he adds, though football is one.

Learning German, with its gendered nouns and complex articles, is another major hurdle for some.

And in major German cities, it can be hard to practice German because many Germans speak English and tech immigrants are usually employed in jobs where the working language is English.

“Here in Berlin, you can barely hear people actually speaking German,” says Sadek, who added that when he worked in Würzburg he spoke way more German.

And then there’s the food

“There is no good Indian food in Germany,” said Binu, the water engineer. Others agreed, saying they think the Indian restaurants in Germany water down the spices to appeal to Germans.

“You don’t get the authentic taste,” said Varsha. While acknowledging that there are many native-born Indians working in Indian restaurants, she said the places “are just foreign in name.”

“I cook and I bring spices from home,” she said, as she doesn’t trust what she can buy in the stores in Germany to be authentic.