A Welcome Center in Schleswig-Holstein managed to find just five job seekers a new position over the course of 2024, a parliamentary enquiry has revealed.

German welcome center places just five job seekers

An information request submitted by the SPD to the state government in Schleswig-Holstein has revealed that a Welcome Center in the federal state helped just five people find new jobs in 2024.

The center, a midway point between the local State Office for Immigration and Refugees and the Federal Employment Office, was opened in December 2023 and is tasked with advising and supporting newcomers’ integration into German society and the job market.

According to figures from the Federal Ministry of Labour, 516 advice appointments were booked with the Welcome Center’s nine employees in 2024, 199 of which were booked by non-German job seekers. 

The Welcome Center held between five and 10 advice appointments with the five job seekers in question before they were referred to an employer, with three going on to work in healthcare, one in a bakery and another in engineering.

CDU Labour Secretary for Schleswig-Holstein Tobias von der Heide said that while the current success rate of the Welcome Center was insufficient, the center is there for guidance, not to find jobs for people. Von der Heide said that these job-seeking and visa processes often begin before a candidate has arrived in Germany and can take months.

SPD says Schleswig-Holstein Welcome Center is a joke

“It is simply frustrating for us to see how this newly created [Center], which was once widely advertised by the [CDU-Greens] coalition, is a flop, while our companies are desperately looking for skilled workers,” said the leader of the SPD opposition in Schleswig-Holstein Serpil Midyatlı.

Countless reports on Germany’s worker shortage warn that the country desperately needs to welcome migrant workers to prevent further economic downturn in the coming years. 

Most recently, in a special report published ahead of the federal election on February 23, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) predicted that 4,7 million existing employees will leave the German labour force between 2024 and 2028. 

“The German economy needs a significant influx of labour for long-term growth,” DIW economist Angelina Hackmann told SPIEGEL. Hackmann warned that unless measures are taken to make hires from abroad, the German economy’s growth potential will fall to 0 within the next two years.

The state of Schleswig-Holstein expects to lack 180.000 skilled workers by 2035 unless changes are made. “If the same pace is kept, it will take 3.600 years for the Welcome Center to complete its task,” SPD politician Kianusch Stender calculated. The SPD later corrected Stender’s maths to an expected wait of 36.000 years.

While von der Heide promises that the Center is still getting started and more caseworkers will be hired in 2025, Midyatlı said the current state of affairs had “satire programme potential”. 

Thumb image credit: Ulf Nammert / Shutterstock.com