Germany woos Indian workers spooked by US visa changes

BERLIN — Comparing its migration policy to a German car — reliable, modern and predictable — Germany’s ambassador to India made a pitch for skilled Indians to come to his country, taking an indirect jab at the United States over its crackdown on skilled foreign workers.

In what he described as “a call to all highly skilled Indians,” the diplomat, Philipp Ackermann, posted a video to social media Tuesday, playing up the prospects for well-paid jobs for skilled Indians in Germany, which is facing a rapidly aging society and a dwindling labor force.

“Our migration policy works a bit like a German car — it’s reliable, it’s modern and it is predictable,” Ackermann said in the video. “And you don’t have to fear a full brake at a top speed. We do not change our rules fundamentally overnight.”

That tone contrasted with recent comments from Washington, where President Donald Trump on Friday signed a proclamation that adds a $100,000 fee for new applicants for H-1B visas, which allow foreign workers like software engineers a chance to be employed in the United States. Indians account for the largest nationality of workers who are granted the visas.

Germany would like to attract some of them. Already, about 124,000 Indians work in Germany, according to government data. Most of them have jobs in computing, science or technology, making them among the top earners there.

“The average Indian working in Germany earns more than the average German working in Germany,” Ackermann said in the video, which included a link to information on how to begin the visa application process and where to learn the language.

Last year, Germany started a program aimed at making it easier for more workers from India to come to the country by opening up a larger contingent of visas for them and streamlining the application process.

But Indians coming to Germany have to learn a new language, which many find daunting. Among the 50 Indian students awarded a two-year Erasmus scholarship to complete a master’s program in the European Union, nearly half of them chose to study in France. Only seven chose to study in Germany.

Germany needs tens of thousands of skilled workers to fill open jobs, especially in its technology sector. As many as 387,000 jobs remained unfilled as of March, according to the German Institute for Economic Research. That number is expected to more than double in the next two years.

Every fifth citizen in Germany is now older than 67, and the country’s baby boomers — born between 1955 and 1970 — are beginning to retire and there are not enough young workers making payments into the social system to support it.

But reports about attacks on foreigners and the rise in popularity of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party have spooked many young Indians, said Franziska Giffey, Berlin’s state senator for the economy, who toured India this summer in an effort to attract more workers to the German capital.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.