In principle, war refugees should be able to take up work in Germany as quickly as possible. But now it has become clear: Because their qualifications are often uncertain, there is a problem with placement. The result: the number of unemployed in Germany is increasing.

For months, refugees from the Ukraine were considered particularly well qualified – with a high proportion of academics and correspondingly easy to integrate into the labor market. But now there are doubts about this assessment.

The reason for this is the latest labor market figures from the Federal Employment Agency. They give you a different perspective on the situation. The agency registered 0.3 percent more jobless in June than in May and attributed this primarily to the Ukraine refugees.

In the meantime, she has done a precise count and found in an additional internal report that 63 percent of the refugees do not even have professional qualifications – or have not yet provided any information on this. And only 13 percent of the refugees understand and speak German.

When asked, a spokeswoman for the authorities made it clear that this survey may not be the latest. At the moment, attempts are being made to follow up where there is no information on qualification. So the numbers are subject to change.

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The EU recommended providing mechanisms to recognize qualifications “simply and quickly”. Of course, this included first and foremost knowing what skills are available, which is the aim of the employment agency query.

In particular, the EU thought that the war refugees should have access to jobs that are subject to strict regulations depending on the member state, but where there is currently a shortage of workers. This meant jobs in nursing as well as in teaching and educational professions.

With the influx of war refugees, there is an increased need for qualified workers as refugees need healthcare, childcare and education, often in their mother tongue.

The simple recognition of professional qualifications should contribute to the fact that arriving skilled workers can quickly practice their profession again and offer support to their compatriots.

The EU’s ideas went even further: people from Ukraine should gain relevant experience during their involuntary stay in the member countries, so that they would have higher qualifications when they returned home.

“Unemployment and underemployment rose sharply in June. These increases are due to the fact that the Ukrainian refugees are now being recorded in the job centers and are therefore visible in the labor market statistics,” says Detlef Scheele, Chairman of the Board of the Federal Employment Agency, making it clear that there is currently a gap between expectations and reality.

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The article “Sobering figures: why it is so difficult for refugees from Ukraine to find work in this country” comes from WirtschaftsKurier.