09/01/2016 Talking Business

Welcome to Berlin. I am at Tanya Beckett. During the course of 2015,

Germany was the favoured destination for people fleeing conflict in Syria

and leaving other troubled countries. In total, around 1

million migrants made their way across its borders. The Chancellor,

Angela Merkel, said the country was strong and could cope. But how is

the economy absorbing this mass migration of people? That is what we

are here in Berlin to find out. Welcome to the programme. The

refugee crisis in Europe dominated the headlines throughout 2015. One

country was more in the spotlight than any other. Germany is thought

to have taken in about 1 million migrants. What is it doing to

integrate them? I went to Hamburg to find out. Hamburg is the second

largest city in Germany and the biggest port in the country. For if

you hundreds years it was part of a prosperous group of trading partners

in northern Europe called the Hanseatic league. The newest

arrivals in the city are coming in their tens of thousands from further

afield and they are getting here overland.

One of the first hurdles for Syrian refugees in Hamburg is mastering the

German language. Hopes for the future extend way beyond the walls

of this classroom. We have lived in war for four or five years, we

studied in the war, so we can make it in the end. When you go to a

different society or culture, you should be open minded. For me it is

OK. I didn't feel that it is bad just because it is different.

Germany needs an influx of skills. The country has the lowest birth

rate in the world, perhaps this is its chance to nurture a workforce

the future. I am from Syria. Life in Germany is very nice. We go to

school and come home by train with my friends. Everything is good. The

food is nice and Germany is great. And so it is fallen to hamburg

employment bureau chief to match the needs of local firms to these new

applicants, a task that is proving far from simple. We are really glad

that the companies are giving so many chances to sign a contract with

migrants. Our challenge really is that we have two know much more

about their qualifications, about their profiles. We would like to do

that and we have two realise that the majority do not speak German,

English, Arabic, pharmacy and every other language. We need to translate

the documents and translate what they are telling us. Here at a

restaurant in the city, such problems have long been digested. I

ring refugees is a way of giving back. It is a small help what we are

doing for them. Hamburg is now home to tens of thousands of refugees

living in camps around the city. But for migrants to Germany, the future

is about more than just survival. I must also work hard and we will see

what happens. My own business, my own restaurant. I tried to study and

to do something. Joining me to discuss the effect migration is

having on the German economy is Alexander Wilhelm from the

Confederation of employers here in Germany. We are also joined by a

federation whose role is to strengthen society and integrate

migrants and the president of the Institute for economic research. Let

me come to you first and say, how do you see the current situation? We

have a huge challenge in Germany. About a million refugees came into

the country last year and we have got to integrate them. They came for

humanitarian reasons, but we clearly have to ask her questions, can we

integrate them into our society, into the Labour market? Those are

the challenges we have to deal with now. There is enormous appetite for

refugees because there is a gap in the Labour market. The economic

appetite is there within Germany. There is a push and a proven reason

for Germany is to come. The German economy is doing well tempered to

other European countries. We have about 1 million open jobs. German

companies are looking to hire. Economic growth is sound and the

social benefits are quite good. Refugees are taken care of quite

well in Germany. Of course, it is a major challenge. The reason many

refugees come to Germany and not other European countries is that it

looks particularly attractive to come here. Alexander Wilhelm,

getting people jobs is, kitted business, it is not a question of

saying there are jobs and we will take people, why is it so hard? The

most difficult thing for companies is to get an idea of the skills and

competences that people have already. It is one thing to have a

piece of paper from Iran or Afghanistan saying this is my

profession and it is another thing to see, in practice, what they can

do. What we know for refugees, which is a problem for refugees is that

they do not have papers proving their qualifications. The ability of

refugees to work is put at the centre of the integration. These are

people suffering from trauma and don't necessarily expect German, in

fact probably don't and I speak from experience when I say it is not an

easy language to learn. This is a long and complicated process. It

will be a long and complicated process but we have experience from

the 50s and 60s of the guest worker programme, we had people coming from

the Balkans, later from Russia. What are the lessons learned? Language

and work and education. Those three criteria make a good places for a

successful integration. We didn't have enough integration programmes.

We thought a guest worker was a guest to woodwork and leave, but

humans came and humans stayed and those who stayed not properly

integrated, at least many of them so we have become better in the school

system, in universities, of really offering transition into the

education system and into the Labour market. Humans came and humans

stayed, what was the economic impact of that period? They guest workers

in the 1960s and 70s were a big game for Germany. Companies were looking

for workers and the field of those positions. We had full employment at

that time. It is not too dissimilar to today. Germany is in a strong

economic position today. The Labour market is close to full employment.

A lot of companies are looking for workers. It is possible that it

works out. If you are looking within Germany over the last six decades,

which are the regions most successfully economic league, they

have the highest share of migrants. That shows migration has been

successful, people have been integrated successfully. There is no

good reason why it shouldn't work. Most are below the age of 25, so

that is a positive feature and shows they are going to be here, possibly,

for 40 or 50 years. The opportunities are there and I think

what Germans need to realise, it is up to migrants to make that step to

integration, but it is up to our society whether integration is a

success or a failure. Is it going to be a success this time round? Is it

being managed in an organised way, such that the opportunity for

failure is largely eroded? We clearly have trouble managing

migration at the moment. We are overrun. We don't know how many

people entered the country. I am also very confident that we will be

able to manage this process properly and that we will be able to give

chances and, as we just heard, for the migrants in the past we also ran

studies showing we have a net benefit in taxes and social security

from people coming to our country and I think the general population

of our society have understood that we need migration and that

migration, or migrants, have a positive impact on society. In the

personal environment, as well as for economic reasons. The society is

generally very open. As we have seen, people are welcoming refugees

and helping them. Alexander, there are pictures of Germans with

balloons and so on welcoming refugees, but if you talk to many

Germans, they do have concerns about the longer term, but about public

services and the burden being put on those and also, cultural

differences. How do you bridge that? pure number. It is a very big influx

of refugees we have at the moment and this is something that scares

people in a way, or at least many people. Once you make clear and the

government makes clear that we will only accept these people to stay

here and integrate these people who fulfil these criteria and the other

ones will probably need to go back, then you raise the acceptance in

society as a whole and this is one thing that it is important we speed

up procedures in the asylum process and we need better burden sharing

within the European Union. We need to improve our cooperation with the

transit countries, 34 example. We need support for the countries

neighbouring Syria who already carry a high burden and have already

posted a huge number of refugees. We need to give these people a

perspective they are to bring figure is down. Thank you to you

all. Later we will be talking about the longer term impact of migration

on the German economy. First, let's hear from our

This week 's talking point. Migration, what does it mean

occurred to you, it had a wave of immigration, a flood of

humanitarian, as if they were an involuntary organism acting without

thought. They are not. They are individual human beings with

individual stories. The talking point this week is about the human

side of migration. This is one of my favourite museums in Dublin. It is

the oldest parish church. It is 900 years old. Being on this ancient

site helps me get a perspective on the other types of migration into

Ireland. You have heard one side of it. Emigration. For hundreds of

problems of their leaders by leaving. What about migration

Ireland. The country has been a destination for

on. We had an increase in non-EU migrants, up to a peak of

central Europe. Then we saw a huge spike in migration. It got into

hundreds of thousands. Beginning a new life in a new country can be a

profoundly entrepreneurial venture. Ireland I am here for 14 years now.

I am in the coffee business and I like what I am doing. We have a

little chain called the Art of coffee. We have 24 staff. My first

job in Ireland was a kitchen porter. I was washing the dishes. Then a big

coffee company offered me barista training. I had the choice to make

so I decided to work for myself. They might have been concern around

the turn of the millennium because huge numbers were coming in. But

dissipated quickly. It was seen as being part of the economic boom. The

Irish case is interesting converted to other European countries is that

15% of professional and associate professional jobs in Ireland are

occupied by people born outside of Ireland. The fact I left my own

country was not easy. I had to have long days, but I believe if you work

hard, if you want to achieve something, you will eventually have

results. There you have it, there are many reasons for migrating. You

can flee persecution or more, seeking opportunities, either way it

is clear the migration story is also a business story. Remember, you can

see more of those short films on our website. Before, on Talking

Business, we talked about some of the difficulties of integrating

refugees and migrants to German society and the workplace. Where

does Germany fit in terms of its integration policy within the EU?

What fracturing might occur within the EU as a result of the German

approach? The German approach has been criticised in the sense that it

seems a little bit isolated, there doesn't seem to be consultation with

other EU countries and that is important given the freedom of

movement within the EU. Clearly, it is an european issue. It has to be

dealt with on an european level and there as to be more torque and

agreement among the European states and also with countries like Turkey

and that hasn't happened yet. It means migration is an unmanaged,

uncontrolled process. It is dangerous for the refugees and there

is a certain danger that countries like Germany lose the very high

acceptance of refugees if the process remains to be uncontrolled,

as it is at the moment. Do you see it as being uncontrolled? Of course

it is uncontrolled, that happens with refugees, you cannot control

water. In Germany there is a sense of disappointment with the European

neighbours. Clearly, 3 million refugees coming to the European

Union is a big number, but if they are shared equally, within the EU,

it is not such a big number for 500 million inhabitants. If more than 1

million come to a country with 80 million, it is a much bigger burden

for that country. It is an european solution that is needed and my worry

is that the refugee crisis really drives Europe apart and we shouldn't

let that happen. Do you see it that way, that the refugee crisis has the

potential to push Europe further apart? There surely is a danger at

the moment and we didn't really expect that the other European

member states would not take their part of the burden as well. This is

what we see right now, that we need to make clear that we want to show

European values, all of us, as the European Union and European

countries, but also solidarity between the countries. It is right,

of course, that as a strong economic nation in Germany that we take and

carry a bigger burden than, let's say, some of the smaller eastern

European countries within the European Union, but it doesn't

necessarily mean that we can carry 80% of the burden and it is not what

we expected. It is central to the EU that workers can move freely within

the EU and we have seen that that is problematic if you have enormous

disparities of economic performance, then everyone wants to go to the

country where the economy is booming. It is coming into question

now, isn't it? Is there a middle ground? I don't think it has been

problematic, to be honest. Before the refugee crisis came, there was

large net migration to Germany from within Europe. The German Labour

market absorbed it. People were migrating back after a while. People

were sending money back to their families. Instead of sending money

around the EU by governments in order to support more needy

economies, that people move freely. This was borne of Asian monetary and

desire and there is a need to make it work economically and the two are

not necessarily well matched, or are they? There shouldn't be a

contradiction. Human beings, the matter whether they have high skills

or low skills, as long as defined in job, make a contribution to

society... You are of the view that low skilled workers make a valuable

contribution? It is an illusion that only the high skilled, high earning

migrants are good migrants in the sense that they make a contribution

and that is wrong. Look at health care in Germany. The health care

sector, almost half of the people working there have a migrant

background and often times, nurses and other people have low income.

They are not the people who pay high taxes. In the past, Germany did not

allow refugees. For years on end they were allowed to enter the job

market. We have changed refugees and we allow them into the job market

because we know for integration it is language, it is education, it is

Labour. If we give them the opportunity to work they will more

easily integrate into our society and more easily give something back

to society as a contribution financially. We see that where we

are, the biggest need for a work is for skilled work and we know that,

of course, it is a huge challenge to integrate people without formal

qualifications into skilled work. This is what we need to see, that it

would be difficult but we have such a high share of people with low

qualifications right now. We need to invest a large, first of all, to

give them a school degree that enables them to pass a vocational

training system ought to go to university. What you're saying is

unskilled in one country may not be on skilled in another? People from

Syria or about five years behind in school compared to Germany. If he

has somebody trained as a car mechanic in Syria, it is a

mechanical task. In Germany it is a digital, electronic job description.

Different qualifications, even for the same jobs. Where do you see the

situation in ten years? After five years, about have had a job, half

were unemployed. After ten years, we have seen it is still only 80% have

a job, 20% are unemployed. Integration is a long-term issue. It

very much depends on us as a society. How do we integrate them?

We have young people who are motivated, who want to do something,

so it is up to our society, politicians, to give these people an

opportunity. Thank you very much. I want to thank U all. That is all

from Talking Business in Berlin. Do join us again when we will be back

in London. What a day. We have had everything

thrown at us today. It was a cold start in Scotland. We have seen

showers, some of them heavy, some widespread with bands of persistent

rain pushing steadily north and some storms with hail and