IFO: No repression
Eastern Europeans take on unattractive jobs for Germans
April 23, 2024, 11:19 a.m
Many people have found work in Germany since the EU’s eastern expansion. According to an IFO study, these are often the unattractive and lower-paid jobs. However, the Eastern Europeans will probably not be able to meet the increasing demand for skilled workers.
20 years after the EU’s eastward expansion, it is clear how important employees are for the German labor market. After ten countries from Eastern and Southern Europe joined in 2004, around 820,000 people from these countries now work in Germany and have filled gaps in the job market, according to a study by the IFO Institute in Dresden.
“People from the Central and Eastern European accession countries work primarily in sectors and professions that are not very attractive for local workers due to low wages or unfavorable working conditions,” said IFO expert Joachim Ragnitz. “Contrary to what many feared, this did not lead to the displacement of German employees from the labor market.”
The economy is increasingly suffering from a lack of qualified personnel and is trying to hire skilled workers from abroad. This increases competition for talent and ensures more immigration. According to the IFO, employees from the Eastern European accession countries are unlikely to be able to meet the future increasing demand for skilled workers in the coming years.
Significantly less earnings
48 percent are currently working as specialists, 42 percent as helpers and five percent as specialists or experts. They earn significantly less than most others. According to the study, the so-called median salary across all nationalities in the ten accession countries and employment groups is 2,580 euros per month, while the average for all employees in Germany is 3,650 euros.
“The contribution of employees from these countries to covering bottlenecks in demanding jobs is currently quite low,” said Ragnitz, deputy head of the IFO Dresden branch. The employees were concentrated in transport and logistics companies (14 percent), in temporary work (11 percent) and in the construction industry (11 percent). Their share is therefore disproportionate in more demanding service professions, in retail and in the hospitality industry.
On May 1, 2004, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Cyprus joined the European Union (EU). The currently around 820,000 employees from these countries make up 2.4 percent of all employees. Almost two thirds of them come from Poland. According to the IFO, they are almost evenly distributed across Germany, with a focus on districts along the German-Polish border and in agricultural regions of northwest Germany. The second largest group is made up of employees from Hungary with 14 percent, followed by Czechs with 8.4 percent.