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A delegation with representatives of the Swedish Council for Higher Education visited the BQ-Portal on 1 February in order to get acquainted with the professional recognition in Germany. Since 2017 it is possible in Sweden to have your foreign professional credentials recognized. In Germany this legal right was introduced already in 2012. The Swedish Council for Higher Education is responsible for carrying out recognition procedures in Sweden and already uses the information available in the BQ-Portal in daily work. At the meeting, the Swedish guests learned how to find the information in the BQ-Portal, and found out, how the BQ-Team carries out research on foreign VET systems and professional profiles.
The Federal Statistical Office reports a record high in the recognition of foreign professional qualifications: In 2023, significantly more foreign skilled workers were able to have their vocational training recognized in Germany, with 54,981 qualifications successfully recognized. This represents an increase of 25 percent compared to 2022 (52,300). Compared to 2016, the number has even doubled. This achievement is also a result of the new Skilled Labor Immigration Act.
In Germany thanks to the three central information portals for recognition of foreign professional qualifications, “BQ-Portal”, “Recognition in Germany” and “anabin”, there is a wide range of information on the recognition process. From now on, the new project “ProRecognition” aims to offer also in other countries comprehensive information on the possibilities of having foreign qualifications recognised in Germany.
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The profiles on 18 focus countries with high potential for recruiting skilled workers include information on the economy and society in these countries, on the most important features of the vocational training systems and on current immigration and integration in Germany.
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.
German Bundestag passed the Integration Act on July 7. The guiding principle on which the new legislation is based is that of “support and challenge”. Refugees who have good prospects of being allowed to stay permanently will be eligible to take integration courses and to take advantage of job and training opportunities sooner than before. But they will also be required to work on their own integration. Those asylum seekers who refuse to take an integration course or who do not meet their duties to cooperate will have their benefits curtailed.
The Federal Statistical Office published the statistics on the Recognition Act this October. Over 17.000 applications for recognition of foreign professional qualifications were processed in 2015 in Germany. In most of the cases, full or partial equivalence could be established. Only 2.6% of the applicants received a negative ruling.
The applicants willing to have their foreign credentials recognised must bear the costs of the recognition procedure. They must meet the costs for an application, translations, certified copies, and if necessary for a qualification analysis, as well as an additional training.
The “2013 Shortage Analysis” conducted by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) on behalf of the BMWi’s competence centre has found that companies in Germany increasingly have trouble filling vacancies because there are not enough suitable candidates.