The debate comes against the backdrop of an aging Germany whose economy is in desperate need of workers, and an immigrant community that is in desperate need of jobs but faces restrictions during the asylum process.
Deep in the eastern state of Thuringia, the district of Saale-Orla-Kries has implemented one of these pilot projects for dozens of Syrian immigrants. Hanan Baghdadhi, 48, and Anas Alharerei, 26, work three days a week at the town’s sports association for about $0.86 an hour.
Cleaning, washing sports kits and taking care of the grounds are among their duties — jobs that otherwise would be done by part-time workers or volunteers.
“Some people see this as a comedown,” Baghdadhi said, aware that Germany’s standard minimum wage is about $12.85 an hour. “I don’t see it as a matter of money, but as voluntary work.”
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Back home in the Syrian capital, Damascus, she cared for the elderly and for animals — jobs she would like to do in Germany. For Alharerei, who was a textile factory worker in the town of Daraa, the sports association job gets him out of his apartment. “We have to give something back,” he said, “because the state has given us so much.”
Their meager pay supplements a monthly allowance of nearly $500 from the state. Anyone eligible for the work program who refuses to participate is docked about $200 from that allowance.
“It’s important that people who are with us and are paid by German tax money also make a contribution,” said Christian Herrgott, the district councilor from the center-right Christian Democrats who spearheaded the work program. “Those who don’t contribute must also feel the consequences in the end.”
The legislation that allows compulsory community work for such low rates has been on the books for 30 years but has rarely been implemented.
Critics say the programs are an effort to pander to anti-immigration sentiment among voters and to false narratives about “work-shy asylum seekers” — just months before key elections in three eastern German states, including Thuringia, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is expected to make major gains.
“If this is really about creating prospects and possibilities, then the way to that is a very different one. We should be using all possible means at district level to enable access to the labor market,” said Tareq Alaows, a refugee policy spokesman for Pro Asyl, an immigration advocacy organization. “But that’s not the case. Instead, this is simply right-wing populist communication.”
Germany’s labor market is already creaking under the effects of an aging population and a lack of skilled workers, and to sustain its current rate of economic growth, it needs 400,000 new workers annually.
In 2015, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed in about a million asylum seekers. Images of Germans welcoming Syrians at train stations across the country were broadcast around the world. But the “welcome culture” quickly gave way as localities strained to house and integrate the new arrivals and a cost-of-living crisis swept across Europe’s largest economy.
Anti-migrant sentiment grew — particularly in the less economically successful parts of the east — and the AfD entered the federal parliament for the first time in 2017.
Wido Geis-Thöne, a senior economist for migration issues at the German Economic Institute, questions whether special work programs are even needed. Instead, he says, asylum seekers should be ushered into regular employment as soon as possible.
“There are currently still a number of bans and other legal obstacles to employment during the asylum procedure that should be urgently removed,” he said. “In many economic sectors in Germany, we actually have employment opportunities in the regular labor market, so we don’t have to rely on these communal jobs.”
Asylum seekers in Germany can look for employment without a work permit after six months in the country — a search often hindered by trouble speaking German, inadequate qualifications, or qualifications not recognized by German authorities. In some cases, asylum seekers can gain permission after four months in the country.
A study published last year by the Institute for Employment Research, known by the German initials IAB, found that of those who arrived in 2015, just under two-thirds had found jobs by 2022. But among those who did find jobs, 41 percent were working below their level of employment before moving to Germany.
While “skill downgrading” is not unique to Germany, the country’s rigid system of traineeships and specified qualifications — for which there aren’t always equivalents in other countries — make it harder for refugees to enter the German labor market, said migration Herbert Brücker, an IAB migration expert. Retraining to obtain the required certificates only extends the long road to employment.
One area of success has been the medical profession, where Syrian refugees have made a dent in the shortage of skilled workers. According to the German Medical Association, the number of working doctors from Syria has increased fivefold since 2012 and they now account for the largest group of foreign doctors in Germany.
“It has to be said, it takes a while,” said Brücker, adding that Germany’s bureaucratic hurdles and requirements play a huge role in the slow process.
“The asylum procedures, the employment ban at the start, limited access to the job market — there is also so much uncertainty about someone’s residence status that companies don’t hire people at the beginning. Many people also have a language program on arrival in Germany that is usually full time, for six to nine months. And sometimes it can take a year, two years even, before such integration courses even start,” said Brücker.
Such is the case for Baghdadhi, who after seven months in the country still hasn’t been allotted a place in the language program, and her job at the sports club offers little chance at linguistic interaction — or any kind of interaction.
“There’s no one here when I get here. And no one here when I leave,” she said. Until a place in a language course becomes available and her German improves, the little communication that does take place is via translation apps.
“Sometimes I feel a bit lonely here,” she said. “I hope that will get better and won’t be like this forever.”