BERLIN -- Germany can't seem to solve its high-tech worker shortage, even a year after Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder introduced his "green card" program for IT workers.
Six months after the program was officially launched last fall, Germany had issued special work permits to 5,000 foreign IT workers, according to a poll conducted by Germany's Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Business Enterprises. That's a significant increase over the 884 handed out in 1999, but falls far shy of the ambitious goal of 20,000 set by Schroeder.
The major problem appears to be Germany's reputation as a country where foreigners do not always feel welcomed. That holds especially true for non-Europeans -- in particular Indians, who accounted for the largest proportion of those issued the green cards. They were followed by workers from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Romania.
"I have talked to friends in India and asked if they were interested in coming here, and they said they would prefer to go to the United States," said Rajesh Agarwal, a Frankfurt-based business consultant who has been in Germany for more than 20 years.
"Normally, these positions should be snapped up. One reason they have not been is the language. Another is all these stories in the media about problems with foreigners in the country. And thirdly, the amount of cash people get in hand here -- most of it is taken away in various taxes. But when they go to the states, for example, they get much more money."
The intangible of racism may play the most significant role, he said.
"I have talked to quite a few friends who work in this industry and they say they definitely feel a racism problem here," he said. "For example, if they wanted to start a business, they think it's much easier to get financing if they were in America than here in Germany. Here, they do not get the same treatment. It's not overt racism. It's latent. There is an assumption that even if you have a very good education, it still does not help."
The politics of immigration remain very touchy in Germany, where anti-foreigner sentiment helped account for a rise in right-wing violence last year. Over the past decade, the percentage of immigrants living in Germany increased from 4 million to 7 million (in a country with 82.8 million people). Polls indicate as many as two-thirds of the people want fewer immigrants.
But Schroeder continues to push his plan to bring in more skilled foreigners, and may even try to change current rules so that workers will be entitled to stay in Germany after five years, rather than having to leave. Already, that is how the state of Bavaria is handling its recruitment of foreign professionals.
"They give a permit as long as the person has a job for a certain company," said Wolfgang Hummel, a legislative analyst for the Berlin Senate. "If this job ends after three years, he has to go home. If it ends after eight years or 12 years, then he has to go home then."
Greater flexibility throughout Germany might make the program more attractive, both to professionals and their potential employers.
"We have not tried to hire foreigners yet," said Patrick von Ribbentrop, CEO of a small Berlin startup, logandgo.de, an account aggregator. "If we expand and need more technical assistance, we are contemplating foreign workers with technical experience. But I think the green card program is a little bit too expensive.
"For example, if we have technical workers from the Ukraine or Poland, we have to pay them a wage that is similar to what a German programmer earns when he finishes his training, around DM100,000 a year. So in the end, it's cheaper for us to work with a Polish programming company, and have the work done there. They set the minimum wage where they did so companies like us wouldn't hire only foreigners. It's to help the Germans, basically.
"But I think it's a good program. I know some companies who have hired foreign workers, for example from India, and they have had a good experience."
The preference of foreign IT professionals for the United States is unlikely to change under current conditions. Germany will still face the prospect of vacancies going unfilled.
"There is certainly a need, but this need has also to do with the inflexibility of the German labor market," said Hummel. "If you only look at formal qualifications, you will miss a lot of people.
"We have some physicists and mathematicians who are unemployed, but if they apply for jobs with computer companies, they would be told: 'You don't have the right training.' But I have a friend who works for Microsoft, and he studied creative writing. The Americans are more flexible."
