Friday, October 31, 2014
Tweet[IWS] MPI/ILO: GERMANY: LABOR MARKET INTEGRATION POLICIES FOR NEW IMMIGRANTS: INVESTING IN THE FUTURE [31 October 2014]
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies-----------------Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor--------------------Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
This service is supported, in part, by donations. Please consider making a donation by following the instructions at http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/iws/news-bureau/support.html
Migration Policy Institute (MPI) &
International Labor Office (ILO) &
financial assistance of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs,
THE LABOR MARKET INTEGRATION OF NEW ARRIVALS (Series)
http://migrationpolicy.org/programs/labor-market-integration-new-arrivals-europe
INVESTING IN THE FUTURE: LABOR MARKET INTEGRATION POLICIES FOR NEW IMMIGRANTS IN GERMANY [31 October 2014]
by Carola Burkert and Anette Haas
http://migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/GermanyEmpl-Policy.pdf
[full-text, 31 pages]
Press Release 31 October 2014
Investing in the Future: Labor Market Integration Policies for New Immigrants in Germany
Against the backdrop of an aging population and shrinking labor force, ensuring that immigrants are able to make their way into middle-skilled work has become a policy priority in Germany. While the demand for qualified workers continues to increase across regions, immigration to Germany in 2013 hit its highest level in two decades. The challenge for policymakers is how to capitalize on the full potential of immigrant workers and help them overcome the many barriers they face to progress in the labor market. Although new immigrants enjoy considerable improvement in their access to the German labor market, they still encounter significant challenges to advancement.
Over the past several years, federal, state, and local governments in Germany have introduced an array of initiatives to improve the labor market outcomes for new arrivals, both through targeted interventions aimed at immigrants and mainstream institutions like the public employment service. Several of these initiatives were designed with the cooperation of employers, who play a significant role in professional skills development. Chief among the obstacles to upward mobility among immigrants are insufficient language skills and lack of recognized qualification, both of which are being addressed with recent policy developments. There is evidence to suggest that a major piece of legislation in 2012 has made the process of certifying skills from abroad more efficient, for those immigrants seeking recognition of their qualifications. Other initiatives are still very new, making evaluation difficult.
This report examines how successfully workforce development and integration policies in Germany are in supporting immigrants' advancement from unemployment or low-skilled work into middle-skilled jobs. It provides an overview of labor market conditions and immigration trends, assesses recent efforts to make vocational training and employment services more accessible to workers with diverse needs, and explores new initiatives to incorporate language education into work-focused training. The report concludes with policy recommendations to further support the labor market integration of immigrants.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. A Country of Immigration
III. Overview of the German Labor Market
A. The German Labor Market “Miracle”
B. Mixed Prospects for Immigrants in the German Labor Market
C. Labor Market Access Rights Across Migrant Categories
IV. Policies to Support Labor Market Integration
A. An Introduction to the Structure of Service Provision in Germany
B. Employment Services
C. Language Training
D. Vocational Training
E. The Role of Employers and Social Partners
V. Conclusions and Recommendations
________________________________________________________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
