Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have so far fled to Germany. The government wants to help them get jobs quickly. The successes still fall short of what was announced.
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil has called on companies to bring more refugees, such as those from Ukraine, into work. “I am not satisfied with the integration rates we have,” Heil said during conversations with Ukrainian women employed at a Rewe store in Berlin. Heil called for patience: “We need a little time to be successful.”
Heil appealed to employers to also hire people with little knowledge of German. “We should make sure that we don’t leave people stranded in unemployment now,” he said. He also emphasized the potential of people who arrived in Germany after the Russian attack on Ukraine. “Work is still the best integration,” he said.
Summary of the “job turbo” in the summer
With the “job turbo” announced last fall, the Federal Minister of Labor wants to help refugees with prospects of staying find work more quickly through increased placement. Heil had announced that he wanted to place around 400,000 refugees in jobs directly from their language courses, including around 200,000 from Ukraine.
Now he announced: “Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, we have put around 160,000 people from Ukraine into work.” The job centers’ increased placement efforts only began in January. In the summer there will be an interim review of the successes of “Job-Turbo” so far.
First job not as a final stop
Heil not only wants to convince employers to employ refugees, but also motivate those affected to take up a job. “The job you start now doesn’t have to be the final stop, but through better recording of qualifications and better language skills, career advancement is also possible,” said Heil. It is important to support the people because they “did not come to Germany because of social benefits”, but rather fled the war in their country.
As part of the coalition’s austerity decisions when drawing up the 2024 federal budget, the government assumed savings of over 500 million euros in citizens’ money because refugees should find work more quickly through the so-called “job turbo”.
Source: Stern
