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On 11 January 2013, policy makers and representatives from chambers of commerce, companies, public authorities and migrants’ associations came together for a conference entitled “Skilled workers – Transparency – Respect: tapping the domestic pool of skills” at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) in Berlin. The participants discussed new approaches to assessing and recognising foreign qualifications and exchanged their experiences.
The first day of the European Validation Festival - Unlocking talents in Europe, on 14 June in Brussels, featured a marketplace with 40 stands where organisations had the opportunity to present their initiatives and practices on validation of informal and non-formal learning. The experts from all around Europe shared practices and exchanged ideas and knowledge about how the work experience of job applicants who move from one country to another can be recorded faster and more transparently. The participants agreed that there is a lot to learn from each other. After all, there are many initiatives and best practice projects in Europe dedicated to this topic.
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.
The 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report by UNESCO congratulates Germany for its policies in recognizing migrants and refugees’ prior qualifications and skills. The recognition of foreign professional qualifications increases the probability of immigrant employment by 45 percentage points and the hourly wage by 40%. A million migrants a year visit the website ‘Recognition in Germany’, which offers advice on the recognition procedure in 9 languages. The information on foreign vocational training systems and professional qualifications in the BQ-Portal is accessed annually by over 180,000 website visitors, primarily assessment authorities, companies and experts.
From 1 July onwards, skilled workers from non-EU countries will find it easier to relocate to Germany. On that date, the new Employment Act will come into effect, which is aimed at counteracting the current shortage of skilled workers and enhancing Germany’s position in the worldwide competition for qualified professionals. Not an easy task, as other large Western economies and newly industrialised countries are also adapting their immigration policies.
Taking up a German initiative, the EU SME Envoys Network has drawn up the new European Action Programme for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The European SME Action Programme was presented in Brussels to Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the Commissioner responsible for the internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs.
At the moment, a lot of refugees fleeing from war and persecution are desperate to get to Germany. On the one hand, it is a great challenge. On the other hand, it is a great opportunity: Germany can offer the refugees a safe haven and at the same time enable them to get qualified and enter the labor market.
The nationwide joint study by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), the Research Centre of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF-FZ) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at DIW Berlin focuses on the arrival, current living conditions and future plans of Ukrainian refugees in Germany. The analyses are based on approximately 11,700 interviews with Ukrainian men and women who arrived in Germany between 24 February and 8 June 2022.
The new Employment Ordinance has been in force since 1 July. The list of occupations in which people with vocational training qualifications from non-EU countries can access the German labour market is now also in place. Following the "EU Blue Card" for the highly skilled, the improved recognition of foreign vocational qualifications and the relaxations in the rules for students from non-EU countries who wish to stay on to work in Germany, this is a further important step towards making it easier for workers from outside the EU to enter the German labour market and towards covering the skills gap in the German economy via migration.