Wanted: Skilled workers; Europe jostling for qualified foreigners to fill labour needs

Neo Hui Min, Straits Times Europe Bureau

BERN (SWITZERLAND) - GERMAN engineering giant Siemens recently offered its workers the chance to win 3,000 euros (S$6,200), on condition that they find the company new engineers.

And some over-55s who were retrenched in the earlier part of the millennium are now being recalled to work.
With the recovery of the German economy, many companies are now scrambling to fill vacancies, particularly in the skilled jobs sector.

Not only in Germany, but also across many countries in Europe, there is a growing shortage of skilled labour.
It remains to be seen what effect the latest terror attacks in Britain may have on foreign recruitment in Europe - Britain plans to tighten the rules for foreign-born doctors hoping to practise there - but for now, the competition for skilled labour is heating up.

Some European countries are implementing policies to attract skilled workers.

In Germany, the shortage of skilled labour is becoming so acute that it has even prompted a call for a revision of immigration laws to attract more foreigners.

Yet, even with a recovering economy, such a suggestion is controversial as around 3.8million Germans are still out of work due to a skills mismatch. What companies need are engineers, computer specialists and people with very specialised technical skills, but many of the unemployed are not trained for such work.

But some politicians and analysts note that while jobless workers need to be retrained, Germany also has to attract foreign workers to keep the economy ticking.

According to the Institute of German Economy in Cologne, the economy lost 3.5billion euros in value due to a shortage of engineers alone last year, when some 48,000 engineering jobs went unfilled.

Economics and Technology Minister Michael Glos is considering halving the salary requirement for foreigners from outside the pre-enlarged European Union - before the addition of the likes of Poland, Bulgaria and Romania - who now need to draw an annual salary of 85,500 euros to obtain a work permit in Germany.

The German Chambers of Industry and Commerce also supports this move, noting that foreign students in German universities, in particular, should be allowed to stay on if they have job offers with annual salaries of at least 40,000 euros. It reasons that they will likely have mastered the German language and are likely to be well-integrated.

Across the EU, some three million jobs are unfilled at the moment, and about 5.5 million will be added in total this year and next year, according to the European Commission.

Hence, in the Netherlands, the government is seeking to retain foreign graduates.
 
A policy which allows non-EU residents earning a minimum of 45,000 euros - or over 33,000 euros a year for those aged below 30 - to work in the country without having prior work permit approval was relaxed in late May for graduates.

Foreign graduates are now allowed a year - instead of three months - to seek work as so-called 'knowledge migrants'. In addition, the initial minimum annual salary has been revised downwards from 34,130 to 25,000 euros.
In Denmark, a points-

based system was introduced last month allowing for not just specialists in some sectors, but for workers across sectors, to obtain the right to work there.

Explaining the reason for the move, Integration Minister Rikke Hvilshoj noted: 'We want to attract qualified workers but face stiff competition from other countries.'

And in Switzerland, which has a 20 per cent resident population of foreigners, a quota system was dropped last month for citizens from countries of the pre-enlarged EU, in order to attract more talent here.

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs head JeanDaniel Gerber noted that the growth rate of 2.7 per cent last year and this year's projected 2 per cent 'are hardly possible without foreign labour'.

But even then, such open-

door policies for foreigners are not always welcomed. Earlier this year, Swiss tabloid Blick ran a series called 'How Many Germans Can The Swiss Tolerate?'

In a report noting that labour migration is on the rise, OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria said that it has to be 'well-managed'.

'Migration is part of the solution for labour shortages and population ageing in OECD countries but, to take full advantage of it, effective integration policies are needed, in particular in...education and the labour market.'
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