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Migration aspects and issues in Germany
Introduction
This document provides information about migration aspects and issues in six’s European countries. Within this desk research, we aim to analyze countries situations and implement survey which findings help us to create training manual. Here you can find also migrants success stories. Document consist of countries reports, survey findings, success stories.
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We hope that this document will allow you to get insight in different issues focused on migrants entrepreneurship skills development.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the content whic h reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inform ation contained therein.
Migration aspects and issues in Germany
Germany is an immigration society. According to the Destatis Statistisches Bundesamt in 2019, 21.2 million people had a migrant background, representing 26.0% of the population in Germany. Germany has the capability to realize the existing diversity of immigrant peoples' practices, experiences, perspectives, and talents in productive, creative, and innovative ways, and to keep up with an increasingly globalized world. In order for this potential to be activated, there is a need for practical and innovative frameworks of knowledge and analytical research that can map the diverse situations within Germany's immigration society, identify and address existing capacities as well as existing challenges and problems. With this desk research, we want to bring the needs of the target group of the project to the center and analyze them to create a needs-based training module for entrepreneurship and selfemployment for immigrants.
To understand the analysis of German labour market, it is essential to make a terminological differentiation between the identifications of people as 'migrants', 'foreigner', 'with migration background', and 'with migration experience'. According to the Statistisches Bundesamt the term 'migration background' includes also foreigners. Foreigners are people, who were born in Germany or migrated later to Germany.In addition, people without any state and undefined citizenship are identified as foreigners. People have a migration experience if they were born abroad. Finally, the term 'people with migration background' is the summarize of the identifications foreigner, emigrants, naturalized people, and people, who were born with German citizenship, but whose parents (or at least one of them) naturalized, foreigner or emigrants.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the content whic h reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inform ation contained therein.
Analyzes based on people with migration background are important in the case of Germany. Only the view on the German population shows that their share is not insignificant. Germans without a migration background have a share of 77 % that is 63.8 million. German people with migration background (which addresses those who are naturalized) are 9.6million of the German population and together with the people, who are identified as foreigner (9 million), they have a share of 23 % (18.6 million), which is nearly a quarter of the whole population1 .
The situation on the labor market of persons with migration background, foreigners and refugees
The social system of Germany is closely linked to the labour market. Expected demographic changes will affect problems in labour market also the whole social system in Germany. In line with the demographic change, the population in the workforce is going to be older and the young workforce cannot replace the workforce, who retires. So, the number of people, who retire would be higher than the number of people entering the labor market. However, this
1 Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Statistik/Arbeitsmarktberichterstattung,Hintergrundinfo - Migrationshintergrund Definitionen, Abgrenzungen und Eckwerte, Nürnberg, Mai 2018
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the content whic h reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inform ation contained therein.
decreasing labor supply could be stopped through the rising labor supply which implies a change in the behavior of people of working age. Not all people of working age have the will to work or in other words, not all people of inworking age are potential labor force.
In September 2017, 2.45 million people in Germany were unemployed. At that time, 78.9 percent of these people had given information on their migration background to the employment agencies and job centers - more current figures are not available for the characteristic migration background. Of 870,000 or 36 percent of all unemployed, it is known that they have a migration background. The number of unemployed refugees is ca. 32.0002 .
Nearly 43 million of the absolute population in Germany are in the labor force and about 8 million of them have a migration background and 4 million are foreigners. As described before, not all people in labor force are employed.
Also, unemployed people, who are available for the labour market are defined as labor force. So, about 40 million of labour force are employed and ca. 7 million of them are people with migrant background and ca. 3.5 million foreigners. The rest (ca. 2.5 million people) are unemployed.3
In 2009, according to Mikrozensus data, a total of around 4.2 million people in Germany were self-employed, which corresponds to a share of 10.9 % of the total employed population. Among the employed population with a migrant background, about 655,000 persons (10.0%) are self-employed, and among the population without a migrant background, 3.5 million (11.1%) are self-employed. This makes migrant self-employment a significant factor in the labor market.
2 Statistisches Bundesamt (2017a). Bildung. Statisches Jahrbuch 2017.https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/StatistischesJahrbuch/Bildung.pdf?blob=publicationFile (2nd of July 2018) 3 Statistisches Bundesamt (2017b): Bevölkerung und Erwerbsfähigkeit. Bevölkerung mitMigrationshintergrund – Ergebnisse der Mikrozensus 2016.1, 2.2 .https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelkerung/M i g r a t i o n I n t e g r a t i o n / M
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the content whic h reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inform ation contained therein.
Educational issues: People with migration background are mostly lower qualified than people without a migration background in Germany.
Educational and language barriers let people with migration background work in low-qualified and more physically exhausting jobs.
Furthermore, the German education system requires studying not only in schools but also at home. Therefore, the qualification level of the parents and the active participation of them in educational institutions are important for the success of their children in the school. Highqualified parents can help their children with their homework etc. However, parents of people with migration background are mostly low qualified.
Besides these educational factors, lack of vocational skills, different work habits are also difficulties faced by people with migration background.
Language as a barrier to success- linguistic discrimination: Language is an important barrier, which can not be overlooked. Skills in the German language are requirements for a successful educational career. People with migration background grow up in an intercultural environment, where more than one language is spoken. Parents can prefer to speak their native language or only German or both, or another language with their children.
Their social position in society is dependent mostly on their language skills since linguistic discrimination allows people to classify people based on their language skills in social layers, gives them unequal access to resources, chances, and rights, and assign specific characteristics to them4. Linguistic discrimination may influence their qualification, social layer, and access into the labor market, too.
Discrimination in the labor market: Discrimination of people with migration background in the labor market, but also in institutions such as credit bank, because of their origin or religious interest is a relevant factor for access and
4 Springsits, B. (2015). 'Nein, das kann nur die Muttersprache sein.'Spracherwerbsmythen und Linguizismus. N. Thoma and M. Knappik (Ed.). Spracheund Bildung in Migrationsgesellschaften. Machtkritische Perspektiven auf einprekarisiertes Verhältnis. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. p.89-108 The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the content whic h reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inform ation contained therein.
success in the labor market because the existing discrimination leads in the exclusion in most of the sectors which would be then occupied by people without migration background.
Uncertainty of the length of stay in Germany: Most of the people with migration background have no certainty regarding their residential status in Germany and this leads to preventing them to open their own businesses.
Recognition of foreign qualifications: This is one of the biggest issues for people with migration background since some qualifications and skills have
been learned informally and no certificates are existing. But for the recognition of the professional skills, Germany asks for documentation which is a problem especially for refugees since most of them have limited documentation. Often the validaty of the documents are not accepted by the German authorities because i.e. the documents are dated during the war time.5
Barriers for entrepreneurship and self-employment
The problems and challenges faced by immigrants on their way to entrepreneurship are of particular importance6:
Above all the bureaucratic burden that is perceived as an obstacle like administrative procedures, approval procedures, proof of qualification, etc. Lack of knowledge of formal and legal requirements as well as lack of entrepreneurial knowledge Lack of financing or inability to provide sufficient own or third-party capital Major barriers to the availability of credit Lack of targeted consultation
Motivation
Pull Factors for Self-employment:
5 OECD (2017), Finding their Way, LABOUR MARKET INTEGRATION OF REFUGEES IN GERMANY 6 Leicht, René/Humpert, Andreas/Leiß, Markus/Zimmer-Müller, Michael/Lauxen-Ulbrich, Maria/Fehrenbach, Silke (2005): Die Bedeutung der ethnischen Ökonomie in Deutschland. Push- und Pull-Faktoren für Unternehmensgründungen ausländischer und ausländischstämmiger Mitbürger, Studie im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Arbeit – Kurzfassung; Mannheim: Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (ifm).
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the content whic h reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inform ation contained therein.
Autonomy and independence
Willingness to succeed, sense of feasibility and recognition of opportunities
Tradition and cultural values (z.B. self-employed in the homeland) Social advancement ( it can be also push factors)
Interim summary (mix of above factors)
Push Factors for Self-employment: Disadvantage and dissatisfaction Passed unemployment Threatened loss of employment7 .
Support
There are several institutional consulting centers such as Chamber of Crafts and Chamber of Commerce in each federal state in Germany8. 8 They offer different consulting supports such
as
Business start-up consulting Business Plan
Information on start-up funding Financing
Marketing
Seminars for Start-ups
Tax advice with tax offices, etc.
Many regional governments (federal states) have implemented integration measures and pilot projects to support the labour market integration of asylum seekers and refugees. Whereas refugees have the same access to the labour market and integration measures as everyone else, a number of legislative measures have facilitated the access to the labour market for asylum seekers and tolerated persons. Refugees have access to regular support measures for self-
7 Leicht, René/Humpert, Andreas/Leiß, Markus/Zimmer-Müller, Michael/Lauxen-Ulbrich, Maria/Fehrenbach, Silke (2005): Die Bedeutung der ethnischen Ökonomie in Deutschland. Push- und Pull-Faktoren für Unternehmensgründungen ausländischer und ausländischstämmiger Mitbürger, Studie im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Arbeit – Kurzfassung; Mannheim: Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (ifm). 8 https://www.ihk.de https://www.handwerkskammer.de/
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the content whic h reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the inform ation contained therein.
