Andrea Nahles, the CEO of the Federal Employment Agency, is urgently pushing for a centralized solution to the government’s planned “Work-and-Stay Agency,” designed to recruit skilled foreign workers. She stressed to the “Handelsblatt” that the agency is currently bogged down by endless tinkering within the framework of German federalism, despite being critically necessary to combat the skilled labor shortage. Nahles issued a strong warning against underestimating this looming “mega-problem,” particularly given that Germany currently faces a challenge involving nearly three million unemployed individuals.
Demographics, she explained, lead to a net annual loss of approximately 500,000 workers for Germany. She noted that Germany’s long-term reliance on immigration from Europe is no longer sustainable as young people are missing across the continent, and the current net immigration figures are at historic lows. Therefore, Nahles insisted that Germany must attract skilled professionals from countries outside the EU. His agency requires the promised Work-and-Stay Agency to make Germany competitive in the landscape of international immigration, pushing for the country to become “more modern, digital, and faster.”
However, Nahles cautioned that effectiveness depends on the “courage to a central solution,” referencing the ongoing conflict within the coalition government and between the federal government and the states regarding the agency’s design. The BA chief criticized the apparent priority given to protecting the roughly 550 existing local foreign authority offices, noting that these bodies were never intended to function as international “Welcome Centers” for skilled professionals. While acknowledging that they do good work, she stated that relying on them is insufficient when competing globally, such as against Canada.
