The calls for ‘skilled workers’ are becoming louder and more urgent in Germany. There are many possible reasons for this shortage. It is not entirely correct to say that 17 % of German workers could be employed in higher-skilled occupations. The figures do not indicate whether higher-skilled jobs would be available for this group. If the economy needs skilled tradespeople but there is a surplus of business administrators, this surplus does not fill the gap. More interesting, however, is the question of why so many more people who do not have German citizenship work in lower-skilled occupations despite their high level of education. This affects a total of 68.9 % of foreign workers in Germany.

Origin leads to discrimination

The Centre for Economic Education at the University of Siegen wanted to investigate whether discrimination actually occurs in the allocation of jobs purely on the basis of the origin of applicants. To this end, 50,000 fictitious applications were sent to companies that had reported vacant training places for people with a secondary school leaving certificate to the Employment Agency. The result was devastating.

Applications with Arabic surnames accounted for the most rejections, followed by cover letters with Russian, Hebrew or Turkish surnames. This fact is particularly significant because even above-average grades and high prospects of success in obtaining a good or very good secondary school leaving certificate did not give applicants an advantage over supposedly German applicants with poorer grades.

Germany’s overqualification rate for workers from non-EU countries is just under 33 %, which is still below the EU average of 40 %. Nevertheless, Germany is a long way from the 17.7 % in Hungary. Fortunately, it is also a long way from Greece, which tops the list with 76 %, followed by Italy with 60.7 % (source: haufe.de).

Formal background

In addition to the rejection of people for higher-skilled jobs based on their origin, legal factors also play a role. Compared to other countries, the Federal Republic of Germany finds it somewhat more difficult to recognise foreign educational qualifications. This inevitably means that highly qualified people are unable to work in their chosen profession. Two industries stand out in particular when it comes to the employment of overqualified foreign workers. These are the cleaning industry and steelworks. In comparison, overqualified Germans are often found in teaching professions and in the financial services sector (source: Institute for Employment Research).

Different distribution of income differences in Europe

In almost all countries, there is an income gap between foreign and native workers. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, despite having sufficient qualifications, foreign workers are pushed into less attractive and less well-paid jobs. Secondly, even with the same qualifications and job, locals simply earn more money. This is the conclusion of a study by nature.com, published on Euronews. The study examined the differences in the USA and seven European countries:

• Norway
• Germany
• France
• Netherlands
• Denmark
• Sweden
• Spain.

In the first four countries, the discrepancy ranged between 15 and 20 %. In Sweden, it was only seven percent, whereas Spain was clearly at the top with a 27 percent salary difference. The region of origin of the migrants played a decisive role in all the countries surveyed. People from sub-Saharan Africa (26.1 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (23.7 percent) earned significantly less than people from other European countries (9 percent). For the children of migrants, the wage level has improved significantly, with a decrease of 5.7 % compared to children of native parents.