Rabab Mushtaq

                                                Book Review

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organization with 35 member countries, aiming to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well being of people around the world. OECD has a series called Recruiting Immigrant Workers, which focuses on countries labor migration policies. With an institutional and economical approach, each volume analyzes whether a country is effectively using migration policies to help meet its labor needs in response to their institutional forces, as well as limiting any unfavorable effects on their national economic growth.

As Germany is one of the member countries of OECD, in 2013 the organization published Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Germany, which argued that Germany is dealing with a detrimental shrink in their working age population. Germany being one of the fastest aging countries in the OECD, it is destructive, economically, if the working age-population starts to decline sharply. As a result, the nation is in dire need to recruit workers, however, the demand cannot be met at a domestic level because of the nation’s demographics. Labor shortages in Germany are noticeable with the rising numbers of vacancies, which OECD discusses. Shortages according to OECD, are expected in all levels of skilled workers from high to low and are expected to increase with time. With employment levels in Germany being generally high in comparison to other countries, the labor market is promising for vast peoples such as women, refugees, and older workers.

Although the book heavily focuses on Germany’s labor migration policy, such as working permits and student visas, there is immense amount of information in regards Germany’s labor needs. I chose OECD’s Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Germany as a means to find adequate information on how refugees will become a catalyst to improve the shortage in Germany’s labor force and stabilize their economy. “According to the United Nations population projections, there will be about 60% more people leaving the working age population in Germany than entering it in 2020. Part of this decline is due to much lower levels of immigration in Germany” (OECD, 35). This information strengthens my research by affirming that Germany will reap economical benefits from opening their doors for refugees. However, being written in 2013, there is no explicit discussion of the refugees in regards to Germany’s recent open door policy. Furthermore, Germany being a member of the OECD organization can raise concerns upon the organization ability to publish an unbiased critical analysis of Germany. However, this book is informative due to the enormous amount of tables and figures displaying trends that correlate to the content within the text. Additionally, the detailed reference has become essential in obtaining work correlated to my research.               

The book is separated into five chapters, addressing key areas such as, demographics (discussing the declining working age population), Germany’s labor force (vacant occupations), German employer demands (highly skilled to low skilled workers), Germany’s labor migration policy in response to the labor shortage, and more. Throughout the book, the contributors show a detailed declination of the labor force in various fields with the support from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Federal Employment Agency, and the Central Foreigners Registry Division of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. One example is the following, “the German Federal Employment Agency forecasts-in the absence of change—a skilled—labor shortage of about 5.4 million by 2025” (OECD, 45). Another example was an analysis done by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, which concluded that labor shortages in specific occupations occur not only in highly qualified occupations, but also in a number of apprenticeship-level occupations. “The largest number of shortages for apprenticeships was in service occupations, such as merchants, sales personnel, cooks, waiters, hotel clerks, and hairdressers” (OECD, 36).

 Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Germany contains extensive statistical data. It can be argued that refugees entering Germany have an opportunity to obtain an occupation, which can benefit economical stability in regards to labor shortage. With the support of the institutions mentioned earlier, such as the Federal Employment Agency and the Central Foreigners Registry Division of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, the book contains valuable data that supports OECD’s argument on Germany facing a labor crisis and their need of migrants to stabilize their economy.

Bibliography

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Recruiting Immigrant Workers: Germany. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2013.

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