In a classroom in Chennai, about 20 nurses are racing to learn German. They have six months to reach the language level required to take up nursing jobs in Germany.
One trainee, Ramalakshi, says her family struggled to pay for her nursing college but invested nonetheless so she could help them later. “My aim is to work abroad,” she told DW. “I want to settle my family financially, and I want to build my own house.”
The six-month language program is funded by the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to combat local unemployment and open global opportunities for disadvantaged families. Private recruitment agencies then match successful candidates with German employers.
Why Germany needs foreign skilled workers
Germany faces a chronic shortage of qualified staff as the large baby-boomer generation retires and birth rates remain low. Hospitals are short of nurses, schools need teachers, and tech firms are looking for developers. Economists at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) estimate Germany must attract about 300,000 skilled workers each year simply to maintain current living standards.
Without more incoming workers, Germans may have to work longer hours, delay retirement, or face lower overall prosperity, according to IAB researcher Michael Oberfichter.
The country has relied on foreign labor before. During the postwar economic boom, Germany recruited so-called Gastarbeiter (guest workers) from countries including Italy, Greece and Turkey. Between the 1950s and the 1973 pause in recruitment agreements, millions came to fill jobs the economy could not otherwise supply.
Bureaucracy and delays
Despite renewed demand, many foreigners encounter slow, frustrating immigration processes. Zahra, who moved from Iran and completed a university degree in Germany, says she was effectively barred from working until she could change her student visa — a process that took nearly a year to get an appointment for. She speaks fluent German, teaches at universities and works in research, yet after more than six years she still has no permanent work permit and must notify authorities each time she changes jobs.
“Sometimes I think: Do I want to live here?” she said, noting friends who moved to Canada and obtained citizenship.
Cologne-based migration lawyer Björn Maibaum, whose firm handles roughly 2,000 immigration cases a year, says such delays are widespread. He blames understaffed migration offices that leave applicants waiting for months or even a year. “That’s just frustrating. And that’s not the message we should send to the world. We’re in a competition [for workers],” he told DW.
Skilled workers and the refugee pipeline
Official figures from the German Office for Migration and Refugees show around 160,000 foreigners with a residence permit are classified as skilled workers. That same office is responsible for processing asylum claims from the large numbers of refugees who have arrived in recent years from conflicts in places such as Syria and Ukraine. Limited digitization and an increased workload have slowed bureaucracy further.
The surge in refugees and the government’s difficulties in integrating them into the labor market have heightened public unease about immigration, boosting support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in some areas.
Integration, racism and retention challenges
At the BDH Clinic in Vallendar, a specialist rehabilitation hospital in Rhineland-Palatinate, nurse Kayalvly Rajavil from Tamil Nadu says she initially struggled with German but felt welcomed by colleagues. “My boss and my colleagues, they helped me and the others a lot, they respect us,” she told DW.
The clinic has hired about 40 nurses from India and Sri Lanka in recent years, mostly through recruitment agencies that charge the employer between €7,000 and €12,000 per placement. Jörg Biebrach, head of nursing, warns that growing anti-foreigner sentiment and occasional racist incidents make it harder to make overseas hires feel secure. Homesickness, family issues and cultural adjustment also contribute to many foreign staff leaving after typical two-year contracts.
To shorten hiring times and reduce reliance on complex recognition procedures for foreign qualifications, the clinic now offers an apprenticeship pathway for young recruits from India who have just finished high school. Recognition of foreign credentials is a lengthy and often state-by-state process in Germany — complicated by different rules across the country’s 16 federal states.
Biebrach and others argue that migration authorities need more staff and faster procedures, and that laws should be more uniform so Germany becomes a more attractive destination for international talent. “Everybody says we need skilled workers. But we are still a long way from a welcoming culture where everything is running smoothly,” he said.
For more on the issue, DW explores these themes in its podcast series Delayland: Germany and the Missing Magic, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and other platforms.