The Federal Ministry of Labor sees the so-called job turbo for the labor market integration of refugees, especially from Ukraine, on the road to success. The increased approach to employers has a positive effect. With the “job turbo”, the number of positions registered with the Federal Employment Agency that can be filled by immigrants almost doubled from November to February, according to the department of Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD). Heil had increasingly appealed to companies and social partners to hire refugees with basic German.
With the “job turbo” announced last fall, the government wants to help refugees with prospects of staying find work more quickly through increased placement. Heil had announced that it wanted to place around 400,000 refugees in jobs directly from their language courses, including around 200,000 from Ukraine.
The ministry has now announced that refugees are being invited and advised by the job centers much more often than before. Accordingly, there were 225,000 additional conversations from November to February compared to the same period last year. The ministry confirmed that around 160,000 Ukrainian refugees have been put into work since the start of the war. Overall, the number of jobs for refugees from the main asylum countries of origin increased significantly last year, from 598,028 in December 2022 to 660,200 in December 2023.
An interim report from the Ministry of Labor to the Bundestag’s Budget Committee on the implementation of the “job turbo”, which is available to the German Press Agency, points to the importance of regular contact with the job center for early integration. Refugees are regularly invited and advised by the job centers, and counseling activity is specifically increased. Due to a statistical delay, the report will only announce further data on labor market integration in a report at the end of September.