Government programme helps Ukrainians find work in Germany

Some 266,000 Ukrainians had found a job in Germany by July, a rise of 71,000 on the year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a Job Turbo discussion round in Berlin on Monday.

Taking the eight most important countries of origin for asylum-seekers, 704,000 people were in employment, also up 71,000 on the year, he said.

"Job Turbo has contributed to this rise since October 2023," Scholz said, describing the initiative by Labour Minister Hubertus Heil as a success.

Heil's programme is aimed at finding jobs for refugees quickly. According to his figures, some 192,000 Ukrainians were in full employment during April, with a further 48,000 in part-time jobs.

The aim is to provide jobs not only to Ukrainians but to others, and that the jobs should not be mainly low-level work.

In November, Heil said that 400,000 refugees had completed integration courses or were about to do so and would be ready for the labour market.

Scholz called for "maximum pragmatism" from all sides. "I can image how difficult it is to start from the bottom in a strange country, and possibly also in a completely new area of work," he said.

He paid tribute to German companies, hospitals, childcare centres and homes for the elderly for employing refugees who had not mastered German.

Heil pledged to maintain the effort. He has for months been pressing for obstacles to the integration of Ukrainian refugees on the German labour market to be dismantled.

Professional skills had to be acknowledged more quickly, he said, along with more accommodation in conurbations and an expansion of childcare. Heil called on companies not to wait until Ukrainians spoke better German.