A new report by the online job board Indeed has revealed what percentage of jobs in Germany do not require employees to speak German, and how local language requirements differ from other European countries.

Keine Deutschkenntnisse erforderlich? Doch

Germany is often imagined to have a multilingual working culture and currently places 10th in the international English Proficiency Index, an international ranking which determines which countries have the best non-native English speakers.

But a recent report by the job platform Indeed has found that this reputation doesn’t always chime with reality. Of the millions of Germany-based job listings posted between September 2023 and August 2024, just 2,7 percent of advertisements said that German was not required for the job.

By comparison, 7,8 percent of jobs listed in the Netherlands said the local language was not needed for a successful application, 5,8 percent in Spain, 4,1 percent in France and 3,9 percent in Italy.

Economist at Indeed Lisa Feist added that the German economy would “profit from more flexibility when it comes to language requirements, to soften the blow of the worker shortage and make migrant integration easier”. "This requires an openness from companies and a willingness on the part of the German-speaking workforce to engage in communication in English," Feist added.

Similar sentiments have been shared by Federal Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) and Head of the Federal Employment Agency Andrea Nahles (SPD). “We need more companies that employ refugees with only a basic knowledge of German and find pragmatic solutions to language acquisition,” said Heil at a 2023 work summit. Nahles proposed in October that Germany learn from the Netherlands, where learning Dutch is not so important for entry-level jobs.

Migrants with German skills earn more

Of the Indeed listings where language requirements were more flexible, nine out of the 10 occupation groups were in low-paid work, such as cleaning services, beauty, retail and hospitality, farming and security services. As a result, migrants and people with migrant backgrounds are overrepresented in low-paid industries in Germany.

Indeed’s conclusions are similar to those of a 2019 study by the Institute for Economic Research (IW) in Cologne, which found that the better their German skills, the more migrant workers in Germany are paid. “Language acquisition is the key to successful integration into the German workplace,” IW report author Wido Geis-Thöne explained.

The IW study also found that on average, in German language tests highly qualified migrants in Germany outperform native Germans with fewer qualifications. The 2019 study concluded that more funding should be designated to continuing education opportunities for Germans without a migrant background and increasing the quality of integration courses for migrants in Germany.

But with the coalition government’s 2025 budget halving funding for German integration courses from 1,1 billion to 500 million euros, the financial burden of learning and teaching will increasingly fall on job seekers or employers. Experts predict the cuts will make it harder for newcomers to integrate into the German job market.

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