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At the moment, a lot of refugees fleeing from war and persecution are desperate to get to Germany. On the one hand, it is a great challenge. On the other hand, it is a great opportunity: Germany can offer the refugees a safe haven and at the same time enable them to get qualified and enter the labor market.

According to a new OECD report, Germany is now the OECD’s second most important destination for permanent migration after the United States. As OECD expert Thomas Liebig claims, Germany is the central engine of migration in Europe. The inflow of foreigners to Germany experienced a double-digit growth with almost 465,000 migrants in 2013. This increase is driven primarily by migrants from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe.

The Federal Statistic Office reports that almost 12,000 foreign professional qualifications were recognized in 2013. This contributes considerably to securing an adequate supply of skilled workers.

The Federal Ministry of Education launched the project “Prototyping Transfer – Professional Recognition through a Qualification Analysis” that is aimed to decrease the organizational cost of the qualification analyses, assure their quality and provide the applicants the financial assistance.

On April 16, 2015 German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foreign Skills Approval (IHK FOSA) in Nuremberg. On her trip Federal Chancellor was accompanied by Johanna Wanka, the Federal Minister of Education and Research.

Following the revised EU Professional Qualifications Directive of 2013, the federal government made the application procedures for the assessment of foreign professional qualifications even simpler.

In March the DGB training institute conducted the first training course “In-company Professionals for Recognition”. Overall, twelve participants attended the one-week training. The majority of them were the works and staff councils from various industry sectors and companies of different size.

The specialist unit at the Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training (f-bb) evaluated the cases processed by the contact points of the “Integration through Qualification (IQ)” in the period from mid-2012 until the end of 2014. A total of 37.562 guidance services on recognition of foreign professional qualifications were provided all over Germany in this period. Those aged 25 to 44 made up 75.8 percent of people seeking counselling. Furthermore, far more women (63.2 percent) than men (36.8 percent) contacted the IQ advisory centers.

More and more people worldwide learn German. This positive trend becomes especially apparent in China (117,000 learners), in India (154,000 learners) and in Brazil (134,000 learners). Thereby, the number of German learners in China has even more than doubled within a period of five years.

The second report on the Recognition Act adopted by the Federal Cabinet this week gives a positive assessment of the act. The experience of three years since its enactment shows that the Recognition Act contributes considerably to increasing attractiveness of Germany for a foreign skilled workforce.