ermany has issued over 50,000 visas to skilled workers and trainees – through the Skilled Immigration Act – to individuals belonging to third-world countries.

The Regulation had come into force on March 1, 2020.

More than 50,000 visas have been issued, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, under the Skilled Immigration Act so far. This was recently announced by the German Ministry of the Interior, Building and Home Affairs.

In an official News, “The Skilled Immigration Act – One Year On”, dated March 1, 2021, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer stated that, “When the Skilled Immigration Act entered into force a year ago, I said it was a milestone in Germany’s migration policy. Today the figures speak for themselves. After only one year, the Act has allowed us to successfully compete for skilled workers by providing people with a legal pathway to the German labour market.”

Germany’s Skilled Immigration Act

• Provides for orderly, rapid procedures allowing qualified skilled workers – from outside the EU – to come to Germany.
• The Act seeks to meet the German economy’s demand for skilled workers,
• Skilled workers coming to Germany from third-world countries are subject to the usual provisions in place in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes Coronavirus-Einreiseverordnung, the ordinance adopted by the German Bundestag in January 13, 2021 as well as the ordinances adopted by the individual German states as per quarantine.
• Focus of the Act on workers with completed quality vocational training.
• Vocational workers can now enter Germany, for finding employment as well as finding apprenticeships.
• Occupational qualifications obtained abroad will have to be assessed for equivalence with German equivalence.
• Under the new law, measures for recognising foreign professional qualifications have been made more practical and attractive.
• IT professionals might enter Germany without formal qualification, provided however, that such workers possess “extensive professional experience”.
• The new immigration rules, as per the Skilled Immigration Act, are not applicable to low-skilled workers.

As per a Report – “A Cross-cutting View of Demographic Policy Résumé” by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community at the end of the 19th legislative period – “Even though immigration from non-European countries has often been the focus of attention in recent years, the vast majority of immigrants to Germany came from Europe, except for the years 2015 and 2016…. A net total of 2.6 million people moved to Germany from European countries, including around 2.2 million from the EU. Almost 1.7 million net immigrants came from Asia and a good 300,000 from Africa.”