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Immigrants getting more work

December 3, 2012

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has reported improvements in the employment rate among immigrants living in Germany. However, Germany could do more for foreign workers, it said.

https://p.dw.com/p/16uzC
Young women training to become seamstresses work at sewing machines shortly before the arrival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the BildungsWerk Kreuzberg, a vocational training school in the immigrant-heavy district of Kreuzberg, on September 5, 2008 in Berlin, Germany. Merkel is visiting schools across Germany in order to get a better unserstanding of the state of Germany's education system. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Image: Getty Images

Over the past decade, the unemployment rate among immigrants in Germany rose to 65 percent, a full 7 percent, according to Monday's report from the Paris-based economic organization. While the report's other analyses revealed a comparatively better picture in Germany than in other OECD countries, it drew attention to a situation still in need of improvement.

The OECD's 34 member states include both the world's industrialized countries across continents, as well as emerging nations.

Between 2000 and 2008, 13 percent of people who had immigrated as children were reported as neither pursuing an education nor employed, compared with 12 percent among their German counterparts.

Germany's rate for this group outranked other OECD countries, where the numbers were 16 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

The education level also reportedly rose by 12 percent among Germany's population with foreign roots. However, the Central European economic power lagged in hiring highly educated workers over the past decade - regardless of where they had been born - compared to their German counterparts, especially in the public sector.

"In Germany, [employers] rarely make use of the opportunity to hire a teacher or policeman with foreign roots," OECD immigration expert Thomas Liebig said.

By contrast, low-skilled migrant workers were hired more often than Germans lacking qualifications.

"Many employers consider these foreigners as poorly educated, but willing work," Liebig said.

kms/hc (dpa, dapd, epd)