Germany appeals to Indian science migrants to stay as it faces English-speaking exodus
Germany’s labour minister has urged Indian scientists to “please stay” in the country as Britain and other English-speaking nations are luring them away with better job offers.
Hubertus Heil issued the plea as his economy struggles with a shortage of biotechnologists, physicists and computer scientists.
“Please stay. Germany needs you,” Mr Heil said during a visit to Freien Universität Berlin, where he met a group of Indian science students to discuss their employment prospects in Germany.
“Due to demographic changes, Germany is dependent on more immigration but people also have to stay,” he said.
According to Die Welt, a broadsheet newspaper, Germany is finding it difficult to retain such workers as they receive better offers in English-speaking countries, both in Europe and beyond.
Germany has been trying to reverse that trend by promoting the country’s high wages, healthy work-life balance and superior air quality, while Mr Heil has been on a diplomatic charm offensive in India, which he visited last year and where he is due to return, to New Delhi, this October for further discussions about increasing skilled migration to Germany.
According to the German Economic Institute, the number of highly skilled Indian workers coming to Germany last year increased by 36,291, while 56 per cent of all Indian migrants in Germany are classified as highly skilled professionals.
“The people who come here are above average in terms of education, and they earn significantly more than migrants from other countries,” said German Economic Institute researcher Wido Geis-Thöne.
At the same time, Germany is under pressure to extend border checks put in place for Euro 2024 as Right-wing parties say they have proved to be highly effective in tackling illegal migration.
Since the beginning of Euro 2024, some 20,000 German police have carried out additional checks at land borders to prevent the entry of hooligans, Islamist terrorists, Russian saboteurs and irregular migrants.
The extra security for the Euro tournament led to thousands of migrants being turned away from Germany’s borders as well as a large number of arrests of people smugglers. Several hundred suspects with arrest warrants for them were also caught as a result of the checks.
But Nancy Faeser, the German interior minister, has said the extra Euro security will be lifted now that the tournament is complete, prompting the risk of a rebellion in her coalition.
Christian Dürr, a member of the coalition’s free market FDP party, said extending the border controls would ensure “that we are very effective in stopping those who want to come into the country illegally – for the time being it is a very effective instrument”.
According to German broadcaster ZDF, the government will end the Euro-related border controls on July 19. A less stringent, temporary set of additional checks at land borders with Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria will remain in place until the winter.