The German Start-Up Association is pushing for the country to remove bureaucratic hurdles which make it difficult for companies to hire employees from outside of Germany.

German start-ups say work migration rules must ease

Germany’s record-high worker shortage means more companies are looking to hire employees from abroad. However, visa restrictions and long application processing times mean hiring from abroad can be complicated and unwelcoming for newcomers.

The German Start-Up Association is calling on the government to simplify these processes. “When it comes to issuing visas, [the German system] must be better digitised, faster and less complicated,” said association representative Magdalena Oehl.

According to the German Start-Up Monitor 2024, a survey of 1.859 start-ups in Germany, just 17 percent of companies are satisfied with the current restrictions around hiring from abroad.

During its three-year term, the SPD-FDP-Greens coalition government has implemented several new policies designed to attract foreign workers, including the Chancenkarte (Opportunity Card), signing a skilled worker migration agreement with India and making it easier for international students to stay in Germany after their studies.

However, just 2.360 internationals have applied for the Chancenkarte since it was launched in June 2024. Critics argue that new policies are not ambitious enough to reckon with the scale of Germany’s worker shortage and forecast a worsening shortage in the coming years.

German start-ups are already pulling international workers

Germany, particularly Berlin, has seen a start-up boom in recent years. In March 2013, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) estimated that between 10.000 and 30.000 employees were working in 2.500 Berlin-based startups in 2012. 

According to figures from the Berlin Senate for Economy, Energy and Services, this had increased to 80.000 employees working for 4.500 startups by 2022. And by 2018, every second employee at a Berlin start-up was a non-EU citizen.

This is a creeping trend nationwide, too. At the 1.859 start-ups included in the German Start-Up Monitor survey, almost a third (29 percent) of employees are non-Germans. In “scale-up” businesses, start-ups which have significantly expanded, 45 percent of employees are international.

While the incumbent German government has announced a 12-billion euro funding programme which aims to keep new companies operating in Germany, instead of moving abroad, the governing SPD has also raised concerns about the working conditions start-ups offer.

There is little data on works council representation (Betriebsrat), representation at start-ups in Germany, but the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) estimates that just 5 percent of Berlin start-ups have a Betriebsrat.

Companies with works councils in Germany generally offer more holiday leave, higher wages and shorter working hours, and have increased productivity and correspondingly increased profits. 

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