Employment & Labour Market

The Skilled Workers Immigration Act, which came into force in March 2020, has created improvements and new immigration opportunities for persons from third countries. Further developments are planned for this legislative period. The BDA has made concrete proposals in . It is important to send a signal both internally and externally that Germany wants to attract foreign skilled workers to the labor market. Despite the many reforms to immigration law in recent years, however, comparatively few skilled workers from outside the EU still come to Germany. In the task of creating and maintaining a welcoming culture that makes immigration to Germany even more attractive for particularly qualified skilled workers, German industry also sees itself as having a responsibility.

Any law is only as good as its practical implementation. For some years now, it has been apparent that it is above all the practical problems in the administrative implementation of immigration law that at least impede, and in some cases even prevent, more skilled workers from immigrating to Germany.

Long waiting times at the foreign missions, complicated and lengthy procedures, and suboptimal cooperation between the various authorities and agencies mean that the legal immigration regulations cannot fully achieve their intended effect in practice. The complexity and lack of transparency of the immigration procedure becomes particularly clear when one considers the 195 pages of application instructions for the Skilled Workers Immigration Act issued by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the 390 pages of administrative regulations for the Residence Act, the 669-page visa manual issued by the Federal Foreign Office, and the 182 pages of technical instructions issued by the Federal Employment Agency on the Residence Act and the Employment Ordinance. Here, it is necessary to create free capacities in the authorities through simplifications in order to administer the significantly larger application volume that we have to expect with the targeted increase in labor migration.

The introduction of an electronic file in communication between foreign missions, foreigners authorities and the Federal Employment Agency, as well as the introduction of a comprehensive inter-agency IT system for employment migration, are also irreplaceable prerequisites for accelerated and smooth processes. In order to facilitate skilled labor immigration and create fast decision-making processes, the bundling of the tasks of the approximately 600 municipal foreigners authorities of the federal states in the area of skilled labor migration into specialized, supraregional central foreigners authorities, as envisaged in the Skilled Labor Immigration Act, is necessary.