Skilled Worker Shortage: Berlin Aims to Attract Unemployed Europeans

With Germany facing a lack of skilled workers, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is looking into ways to attract the unemployed from Southern and Eastern Europe. The plan would stop short of recruiting workers from too far afield.

With the German economy recovering rapidly from the recent crisis, employers have once again begun voicing concerns about finding enough qualified workers to fill their needs. Indeed, Klaus Zimmermann, head of the German Institute for Economic Research, recently forecasted that Germans may soon face a 45-hour work week if the situation doesn't improve.

Ulrich Blum, president of the Halle Institute for Economic Research, agreed. He said that the only way to address the problem would be to increase immigration to Germany. That, it would seem, is exactly what Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are now looking to do. Specifically, her Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), are looking into ways to entice young people to move to Germany from debt-burdened European Union countries like Portugal and Spain. Both countries are experiencing high unemployment, with Spain's jobless rate currently over 20 percent.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,741201,00.html#ref=nlint