The Labour Market Integration of Immigrants in Germany

The current situation of the labour market integration of migrants in Germany has to be viewed in the light of its immigration history. During the post-war economic boom, until 1973, Germany focused on the recruitment of low-skilled foreign labour. Many of these “guestworker” immigrants settled and were joined by their foreign spouses, which has given rise to a second generation of persons with an immigrant background. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Germany received massive immigration flows of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. Shortly after the peak immigration of ethnic Germans, Germany received large numbers of humanitarian migrants. German statistics only distinguish along nationality lines. This hampers assessment of the situation as this does not take account of ethnic Germans – who have German nationality and are now the most important immigrant group, although they face difficulties similar to those of other migrant groups. Assessment based on nationality is also problematic since immigrants with a foreign nationality have increasingly and selectively taken up German citizenship. There is a clear need for statistics based on the country of birth...