Germany: towards a new law on economic immigration

On 12 January 2018, in the preliminary agreement presented by the future government coalition both conservative (CDU/CSU) and social-democrat (SPD) members (c.f. article No. 10520) announced their wish to ‘create a modern coherent migration law’. This is in response to a longtime demand by both employers and the Federal Employment Agency. Steffen Sirries, researcher at the Employment Agency’s IAB (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung - Institute for Employment Research) explained to Planet Labor why a new law on economic immigration was needed and what it should look like so that Germany can resolve its manpower issues.
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Future government’s project. Although the section in the future conservative-social democrat coalition government programme outline addressing ‘economic migration’ is relatively short and also vague, it does nonetheless clearly state its intention thus: ‘Above all in managing migration, we have to concentrate on our country’s economic interests. We want to create a modern coherent migration law.’ The parties’ leaders also added that to this end they would be thoroughly addressing all issues per

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