Obada Hijjo has not had an easy time since he arrived in Germany four years ago. Trained as a policeman in Turkey, the 30-year-old Palestinian initially worked for the police in the West Bank. But, when a case he was involved resulted in a threat to his life, he and his wife were forced to leave the country. Now he is stranded in Germany with âtolerated statusâ as a refugee , which means that he doesnât have official residency but is allowed to stay.
Despite his police training and a degree in political science and public administration, also from Turkey, Hijjo works as a taxi driver in Berlin. Germany lacks workers in both his areas of expertise, but the only other job Hijjo has had in his four years in the country is as a package deliveryman.
He canât work as a police officer, because heâs not a German citizen, but two months ago, after an extended battle with German bureaucracy, he finally managed to get his political science degree recognized. âThe German authority confirmed that I have done a degree in this area in a foreign country,â he told DW. âNow I have an appointment at the job center at the end of the month. Iâd like to be a public administration clerk.â
It should have only taken nine months to get this recognition confirmed, Hijjo said, âbut I kept having to get something else from the university. They kept saying, âget this document, get that document, no, not that one, this one.â They didnât understand that Iâm Palestinian, not Turkish. How am I supposed to go to Turkey? I only have a tolerated status, so I canât leave Germany. I got a bit of a headache with the authorities.â
That experience is something Sanaa Abukalam can relate to. Having fled the war in Syria five years ago, she found herself in Dresden, eastern Germany, where she was soon confronted with everyday racism, including being berated by people on the streets. âA woman with a headscarf has so many problems,â she told DW. âRacism here is such a problem.â
Abukalam spent several years learning German, but she was unable to get her qualifications in alternative medicine recognized in Germany, and was grateful when she eventually found work in a shoe shop earlier this year. âIt all took such a long time,â she said. Her dream, she said, is to work as a social worker helping people like her.
Such experiences are common among the hundreds of thousands of people who have sought asylum in Germany in the past few years. A recent study by the government-funded Institute for Employment Research (IAB), found that 41% of refugees who had been in Germany for six years said they were employed below the level they had before the arrived. The figure is even higher for Ukrainian refugees, more than half are working in jobs for which theyâre overqualified, the IAB found.
It seems clear that thereâs a particular mismatch between qualification and job among refugees, according to IAB researcher and co-author of the study Philipp Jaschke. âPart of it is down to the fact that a lot of jobs can be carried out in other countries without a formal job qualification,â he told DW. âBut there are a lot of jobs which you need a three-year qualification for in Germany.â
Another reason is that refugees often donât have the language skills when they arrive in a foreign country. âCompared to other groups of migrants, refugees have often fled very spontaneously, because theyâve fled war, forced conscription and persecution, and so on,â Jaschke said. âThat means theyâre often very ill-prepared for the country theyâve come to.â
Nevertheless, Herbert BrĂŒcker, the IABâs head of research, was keen to underline that the overall employment rates among refugees are very positive. âWe thought in 2015: If we reach an employment rate of 50% after five or six years, we will be very good. And we were at 54% in 2021, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. So we have exceeded expectations,â BrĂŒcker told DW.
And the longer refugees have been in Germany, the more they are employed: âAmong people who have been here for seven or eight years, we have an employment rate of 62%. Thatâs pretty good. Thatâs only about ten, twelve percentage points less than in the German population.â
The IAB has regularly assessed the integration of immigrants into the German labor market since 2016, and the current study was based on the self-reported data of asylum-seekers who arrived in Germany between 2013 and 2019. The total sample was 10,111 adults who were interviewed at least once and up to six times, including 8,799 working-age refugees (ages 18 to 64) who have arrived since 2013.
Sixty-five percent of employed refugees who have been in Germany for six years worked full-time in 2021. The median gross monthly wage of full-time employed refugees increased from âŹ1,660 ($1,820) in the first two years after arrival in Germany to âŹ2,037 in the sixth year.
Refugees tend to be significantly younger than the average age of German employees, and those starting their working life earn less than the more experienced.
âAmong 18-to-25-year-olds, the earnings of refugees are 75% of those of their colleagues of the same age in Germany. The gap is not that large, and it will also level out over time. But there is still a lot of room for improvement,â BrĂŒcker said.
I have moved to a new country myself (from within Europe to within Europe). I feel such articles often underestimate how important culture and language is for us to work together. Beyond just skills and education. Ironically though, employment is a quick way to learn how to fit in.
I used to work with Germans and want to second your opinion.
Iâm Russian and I noticed a lot of simialries between myself and my German colleagues in terms of work (all IT related), leisure, many opinions, etc. Still, we all started glowing whenever someone said as little as one word in anotherâs language: people often started taking about differences between the languages, shared their experiences, some spoke both Russian and German a little, which always seemed to have brought people together, even if the speaker was very limited in their knowledge.
To many people, the culture you happen to inherit and initially develop in is very dear to them, even if they donât realize that at the moment - they often feel very warm when they see other people showing genuine interest or respect towards it. Itâs really peculiar how you dont notice your culture much unless foreigners express any interest towards it right in front of you.
Here in Italy the situation is the same. They are issuing more and more working visas for immigrants and refugees in order to exploit their skills underpaid and without minimum labor rights. The propaganda, after demonizing immigrants for every possible crime before the elections, has now changed tones saying foreigners need to be employed in order to âpay retirement pensionsâ for the elderly and sustain the healthcare system with the taxes.
I donât really think itâs necessarily exploitive. Western countries place great value on education/training and certifications. And there is a clear difference on how such education/certification is obtained in the west vs other places of the world.
Acting like they are equal when in many cases they arenât is just not a good idea. Especially for someone like a police officer.
But these things are ending up to be super absurd at some points, when even some Austrian degrees are not accepted in Germany. At least there should be EU wide acceptance.
Most of the barriers are actually language and bureaucracy, not qualifications. Even skilled people with engineering and medical degrees go through the same challenges in Germany so they instead often choose to go to Anglophone countries, Netherlands, Singapore, etc where all engineering jobs are done in English and have minimal bureaucracy.
These problems combined with high taxes are are not good problems to have for a country trying to be attractive to foreign workers. With such stupid policies, theyâll only attract low skilled workers. Refugees are different as they donât have a choice but at least you can accept their qualifications properly and give them a job equivalent to their skill level.
Take India, Netherlands and Singapore for example. English is not the native language of these countries but corporations often operate in English which makes them so much more welcoming to foreign talent.
Germany is playing by outdated rules. It needs to adapt, else itâs might will suffer unfortunately.
Qualification in alternative medicine?
refugees who had been in Germany for six years said they were employed below the level they had before the arrived.
Isnât that to be expected? They come to a new place, they have no network, there may be language and culture differences, and their former experience both education and employers are likely unknown in the new place.
How can anyone expect they can just continue in a new place on the same or higher level?
In an ideal world they could, but who imagines this world to be ideal, even without being an immigrant?
They donât face such issues when moving to Anglophone countries though.
IDK why you canât just say English speaking countries, but ok??
Are you sure you are comparing apples to apples? The article also says this:
Another reason is that refugees often donât have the language skills when they arrive in a foreign country. âCompared to other groups of migrants
I donât see how English speaking countries should be able to eliminate those barriers, maybe they do it better, but you claim the issue doesnât exist??? That sounds like fantasy.
Obviously English speaking countries often have an advantage, when English is often an official language in many 3rd world countries, and a very widespread 2nd language. Which German practically never is.
Itâs the same in Canada. Thatâs why I almost donât see the point of letting people immigrate if theyâre not going to be able to work as anything other than Uber drivers or whatever. Itâs not fair that they have degrees that donât count for anything here. I realize for many refugees life is much improved even just being here but itâs always embarrassing to meet an Uber driver who is an engineer with a masters degree at home, and this is all weâll let them be.
Their degrees donât meet the standards of western accreditation. They should never count until they meet those standards.
Equally, we shouldnât invite them here with the false expectation that they do meet those standards.
Meh⊠itâs just gate keeping by locals. Many middle eastern graduates are very intelligent, especially in Medical, Engineering and Mathematics. Iranian doctors are very skilled.
Filipinos are extremely skilled in nursing and medical adjacent fields, something that ageing countries like Germany can absolutely use but bureaucracy means not many Filipinos are coming up Germany.
Itâs purely a language barrier and bureaucracy thing. Itâs a global world. Letâs operate formally in English like how many companies in many countries default to.
I never said the people werenât smart.
Throw them in an accredited uni and theyâll stand out just as well. But if the school isnât accredited, then unfortunately their education shouldnât be recognized until it is.
E.G. a school I almost went to was highly regarded, but didnât have the ability to hand out degrees in engineering because they werenât accredited.
They worked at it and got the accreditation, and now they do hand out engineering degrees.
So if a school anywhere in the world doesnt have accreditation, IMO its on the heads of the staff of that university. Not its students, nor usually western governments.(I.E: not the racist conservative parties of the west. It is on their heads. )
See IIT. Widely regarded as one of the best EEng schools. Is recognized in Canada.
Thatâs why I almost donât see the point of letting people immigrate
So let me see if I get this right. Instead of fixing or alleviating the difficulties of getting a foreign degree recognized, we should just ban immigrants. Thatâs dumb as fuck
Itâs not fair that they have degrees that donât count for anything here.
Fair to whom? Are those degrees from institutions that are regarded as credible by the local country? If not, what evidence is there that the lack of value given to certain foreign degrees is improper or otherwise not based in reality?
