German labour minister aims to recruit skilled workers from India

Germany plans to recruit skilled workers from India on a large scale in an attempt to close its skills gap, Labour Minister Hubertus Heil said on the sidelines of a cricket match with Indians in Berlin on Monday.

Indians' path to Germany is to be eased with more than 30 measures to reduce bureaucratic obstacles to issuing Indians with visas.

Heil's strategy outlines how skills bottlenecks are holding back growth and progress in Germany. The effects of an ageing society will be exacerbated without immigration, it says.

"In India, the situation is the opposite," it says. "There, highly educated age groups from high-birth years are facing a labour market with only limited capacity to absorb them."

Heil said: "In India, a million people are added to the labour market every month." The Indian government was promoting migration, he said. "For that reason, Germany sees a particularly important partner in India with respect to skills immigration," Heil said.

Heil said the German Foreign Office would digitize the issuing of visas – for India by the end of the year and for other countries subsequently in order to prevent delays.

The German language will also be promoted to a greater extent. And Indians already in Germany are to be integrated better, for example with assistance in finding work.

Heil said that the government would present its skills strategy during German-Indian government consultations in India next week.

"We will also do this for the Indian public," he said.