Unemployed Germans look overseas for work
By Hugh Williamson
Published: December 4 2002 20:56 | Last Updated: December 4 2002 20:56
How times change. Germany, Europe's lumbering economic powerhouse, used to attract millions of gastarbeiter [guest workers] from across the continent, drawn by high wages and generous welfare benefits.
Turks and Italians set the trend in the 1960s and 1970s, shaping a social milieu that persists in Germany on Thursday. Later, jobless British and Irish building workers beat a path to Düsseldorf and other big cities, inspiring a much-loved British television series, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, in the process.
Now there are signs that this trend is going into reverse. In a dramatic illustration of Germany's economic woes, many unemployed Germans, faced with few prospects of finding work at home, are packing their bags to seek a better future abroad.
The pattern is most marked in eastern Germany where unemployment in some areas exceeds 20 per cent, according to jobless figures for November published on Wednesday.
"Increasing numbers of job seekers in Berlin and [the neighbouring state of] Brandenburg are looking for new opportunities abroad due to the poor labour market situation here," reports Berlin's employment office.
Patrick Beer, 24, is one such job seeker. He has been unemployed five times in six years. A bricklayer, he is among the 40 per cent of Berlin's building workers who are jobless. He hopes to join friends who recently left to work in Norway.
"It's so frustrating. I am willing to work hard but I keep getting laid off," he says. "When I do work, the bosses either refuse to pay the overtime we do, or break the law by not paying health insurance."
Mr Beer is far from alone, as the popularity of seminars on finding work outside Germany's borders shows. Since October, thousands of job seekers in Berlin have attended events on working in Scandinavia, Britain and elsewhere.
Fifty unemployed people who recently crammed into a small seminar room at a labour office in southern Berlin to find out about living and working in Sweden were certainly keen to leave. "How much can we earn in Sweden?" asks one middle-aged man. A young woman adds: "Is Swedish easy to learn, and how are foreigners treated there?"
Günter Holz, a 50-year-old mechanic, says: "For someone like me, it is difficult to find work in Berlin. My wife is coming too if I can find a job there."
Many have already been successful, says Kerstin Tintemann, a Berlin-based labour office adviser and member of Eures, the European Union-funded network of job counsellors promoting intra-EU labour migration. "Germans are taking up opportunities in call centres, in hotels and catering, on building sites and in the health sector, for instance in Britain, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Our tailor-made programme, '1,000 young east Germans for Ireland', has also been successful."
She admits to struggling to deal with the surge in inquiries on working abroad. Along with the associated "Europa-Job-Center", a Berlin project set up in April to help cope with demand, her office has had 9,000 inquiries so far this year, up from 7,000 in 2001.
No national figures exist on how many Germans are going abroad. Specialist EU-sponsored employment schemes, representing a fraction of cross-border labour migration, show a 25 per cent increase from 2000 to 2001 in the number of German participants.
Those seeking work abroad have mixed motives. Growing awareness of the EU, boosted by the euro's introduction this year, is a factor alongside high unemployment, says Sabine Seidler of the federal labour office. "Better, more flexible working conditions abroad are also a draw," she adds, citing German doctors and nurses in Norway who have shorter working hours and fewer anti-social shifts. Nevertheless, it is far from easy for Germans to leave home, given the comforts of Germany's welfare system. Much discussion at the Sweden seminar focused on the level of social benefits in Sweden - hardly one of Europe's poorest countries.
"It takes a while for Germans to get used to other systems," says Eva Holmberg-Tedert, the Sweden-based Eures adviser who flew in for the seminar.
"Germans worry about the cost of living in Britain," adds Lorraine Morris, a Eures adviser based in the UK's midlands, who gave job seminars in Berlin last month.
Whether this infant trend will gain momentum remains to be seen.
"Germany's traditional status as a net recipient of labour migrants will continue, at least short-term," says Christian Weise of Berlin's DIW economic research institute. Indeed, Germany is implementing a law to formalise immigration procedures.
Despite this, the increased outward labour migration, however modest, comes at a difficult time for the government. The conservative opposition is complaining that Germany is losing its status as a prime location for international business.
Failure of the government's flagship labour market reform plan to reduce unemployment would make matters worse. Labour office staff admit that the image of job seekers turning their backs on Germany is hardly what Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor, needs now.
Political sensitivity aside, helping people find work - even outside Germany - has to be the priority, concludes Ms Tintemann.
"A few months ago, for instance, we sent off 15 people to Ireland to work in hotels. They haven't come back yet. That has to be good news." |
