As many Bulgarians and Romanians immigrate to Germany, they will not be able to satisfy the huge need for labor in the country. It urgently needs new migrants, Deutsche Welle writes.

By 2040, every third German resident will be a migrant or foreign-born person, according to a forecast by the The Institute for Employment Research (IAB). In major cities, the proportion of migrants will be as high as 70%.

Herbert Brücker, who heads the migration department at the IAB, tells Die Welt that in order to meet the needs of the labor market, Germany will in the future have to open doors for people from many different countries. He recalls that at present a quarter of German residents have a migrant background. The trend is upward, which is evident in cities such as Frankfurt: every second there is of foreign origin. And in the capital Berlin - every third. According to a study by the German Economy Institute, migrants are unevenly distributed between large and smaller cities and between regions with stronger and weaker economies.

The Germans will not become a minority

Herbert Brücker warns that there is a danger of a "false picture", according to which Germans will become a minority in the future and immigrants will become a majority. The truth is that the Germans will remain the largest group in the country - and will be far more than migrants. Brucker recalls that the migrants themselves are not a homogeneous group: the majority are Christians, there are Muslims and Buddhists, some have higher education, others have unskilled labor.

According to the IAB, by 2060, Germany will have to accept 400,000 migrants a year if it does not want its economy to shrink due to a labor shortage caused mainly by an ageing population.

Brücker claims that, among other things, Germany will compete with other countries for this valuable workforce. From EU Member States, fewer and fewer people are coming to Germany. Brücker explicitly states that the potential of countries such as Bulgaria and Romania to feed the German labor market is practically exhausted. The same applies to Spain and Portugal. That is why Germany needs to open up to migrants from other countries - such as the EU's neighbours, the Western Balkans and Ukraine.

38% of refugees are employed

IAB Director Bernd Fitzenberger expects that labor demand will remain high in 2020 - even though migrants arriving in the country are more than leaving the country. "But the number of arrivals is likely to fall because our neighboring countries have already overcome the crisis and people are returning to their homeland," Fitzenberger told Welt am Sontag. He further explained that the integration of refugees arriving in Germany after 2015 is going well. According to recent IAB surveys, 38% of them are already working in July.

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