The Bundestag approved the draft of the Skilled Immigration Act with the votes of the traffic light parliamentary groups. Union and AfD voted against it, the left abstained.
The law aims to make it easier and more attractive for qualified workers from countries outside the EU to take up a job in Germany. Among other things, a points system based on the Canadian model and easier recognition of foreign professional qualifications are planned.
The Skilled Immigration Act requires at least two years of vocational training and just as long professional experience, explained the Central Association of the German Construction Industry. “Since there are no two-year construction vocational training courses in many countries around the world, this creates unnecessarily high access hurdles, especially for the need for workers below the level of skilled workers.”
In addition, the success of the new regulation also depends to a large extent on whether it is possible to digitize the administrative procedures for immigration in the offices and embassies to such an extent that lengthy procedures no longer act as a deterrent. The managing director of the nursing employers’ association, Isabell Halletz, demanded: “What employers and, above all, people from abroad who are willing to immigrate urgently need are no further state recruitment programs, but standardized processes and binding deadlines.”
The Association of German Mechanical and Plant Engineering criticized the fact that temporary employment agencies do not benefit from the relaxed regulations and this “without valid justification”. Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (SPD) had argued here in the legislative process with the necessary integration of immigrants, which is not the focus of employment as temporary workers.
In the parliamentary procedure, the parliamentary groups had agreed on a special rule for asylum seekers who were already in Germany: If they entered the country before March 29, 2023 and have the appropriate qualifications and a job offer or are already working, they can end the asylum procedure and apply for a residence permit as a apply for a specialist. This so-called lane change was previously not possible without leaving the country and visa procedures.
Union and AfD criticized this regulation. CDU MP Thorsten Frei criticized the mixing of asylum and labor migration. “The traffic light sends the signal to the world that almost everyone who somehow made it into the country can stay,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND).
The reaction to an extension of family reunification decided by the traffic light groups was similar. According to this, foreign skilled workers should not only be able to bring the nuclear family to Germany, but also parents and in-laws.
A statutory training guarantee and a so-called qualification allowance for companies affected by structural change should ensure more skilled workers from Germany. The Bundestag also decided on both on Friday.
Employers can fall back on the qualification allowance if a large part of the workforce is at risk of losing their job: Regardless of the size of the company or the qualifications of the employees, they should then be paid the qualification allowance as wage replacement while they are released for further training. It amounts to 60 to 67 percent of the net salary. In return, the companies have to bear the costs of further training.
The DGB chairwoman Yasmin Fahimi explained that the introduction of the qualification money was “a great success” and that the training guarantee was also an “important step”. Regional differences must be taken into account in training.
The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, on the other hand, complained that companies were concerned “that external training could crowd out in-company training places and, moreover, that the people with little practical qualifications did not meet the needs of the economy”.
