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The Federal Statistical Office published the statistics on the Recognition Act for the reference year 2016 this autumn. In 2016, 19.800 applications for recognition of foreign professional qualifications were processed. Only in 3,4 percent of cases, no equivalence could be established between a credential obtained abroad and a corresponding German qualification.
On September 14, The Federal Statistical Office published the statistics on the Recognition Act for the reference year 2016. Since the Act came into effect in 2012, 86,514 applications for the recognition of foreign professional qualifications were filed, the Federal Statistical Office reports. In 2016, 23,028 new applications were submitted. This is a 14 percent increase over the previous year. The share of those who received a positive ruling is very high. The made up 76,5 percent of all applicants in 2016. In 66,4 percent of cases (19,845 cases), full recognition was granted and in 10,1 percent the partial one. 20,2 percent of applicants have to complete a formalized additional training in order to be able to work in their profession. Only in 3,4 percent of cases, no equivalence could be established between a credential obtained abroad and a corresponding German qualification.
In Germany thanks to the three central information portals for recognition of foreign professional qualifications, “BQ-Portal”, “Recognition in Germany” and “anabin”, there is a wide range of information on the recognition process. From now on, the new project “ProRecognition” aims to offer also in other countries comprehensive information on the possibilities of having foreign qualifications recognised in Germany.
More than 13,200 foreign professional qualifications were recognised in 2014, the Federal Statistic Office reports. This is a twelve percent increase over the previous year. Since the Recognition Act entered in force in April 2012, some 32,500 applications were granted full or limited recognition, which is good news in view of rising skills shortages.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil and Colombia, three new counselling centres for the recognition of professional qualifications will be opened. In addition, the existing counselling services in Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Italy, Poland and Vietnam will be further expanded. Over the next four years, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research will fund the "ProRecognition" project with almost 8 million euros - twice as much as in the first funding phase.
The Service Center for Professional Recognition (ZSBA) started work on 1 February 2020. The ZSBA complements and strengthens existing structures for the recognition of foreign professional qualifications in Germany with a range of advisory services and personal support during the recognition procedure. This is primarily intended to help skilled workers who are still abroad and are at the beginning of their job search in Germany.
Immigrants perform worse in the labor market than natives, likely because of the low transferability of home-country professional certificates. The standardized recognition of professional certificates in the host country represents one policy for increasing their transferability.This paper investigates the effects of a large recognition reform in Germany on the labor market outcomes of non-EU immigrants.
In this section, you can get an overview of the qualifications of refugees in Germany. Our compact country overviews provide you with information on education and vocational training in the main countries of origin and contact points for all aspects of integration of refugees in companies.
If you as a company would like to support an international candidate or employee in having their foreign qualification recognized, you may use or point them to existing offers of information and advice.