Fewer than one in 10 of the 311,000 working-age migrants in Germany have applied for work permits since the start of the year, the country’s Federal Employment Agency (BA) has revealed.
Since the beginning of 2015, just 17,401 migrants have received permits to work in Germany while a further 9,581 have been turned down. In all, a total of just 26,982 applications have been processed, N-TV reports.
As of August, there are 310,741 migrants and refugees of working age in Germany, with the federal government expecting up to 800,000 to arrive by the end of the year. Andrea Nahles, the country’s Labour Minister, has called on companies to provide paid internships for migrants, telling Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Firms should give hundreds of thousands of young people for six to 12 months a chance to get a taste of our labour market through introductory courses and internships.”
Firms need not pay the minimum wage during this training, she said, and the practical experience of working in enterprise could be combined with learning German.
Yesterday, Breitbart London reported how Germans are now being told they may have to work to an older age and scrap the minimum wage to pay for the massive influx of migrants. The country is expected to spend around €6 billion caring for the migrants by the end of the year, with the Munich-based Ifo Institute calling for the government to raise the retirement age from 63 to 70 to help pay for them.
Hans Werner-Sinn, president of the institute, said that older Germans could play a significant role in educating the newcomers in the German way of life, and if Germany abolishes the minimum wage, he added, companies could cut their wages and take on more low-skilled migrant labour.
The prospect of more work for lower pay is not appealing to all Germans, however. On Wednesday, a record number of people turned out for an anti-Merkel demonstration organised by the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) party, protesting against the government’s asylum policy.
Regional chairman Björn Höcke told the crowd: “The legal right to asylum cannot be maintained in its current form.”
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