Recently Hubertus Heil, minister of the federal labor office shared his plans to bring a highly demanded change and addition to the immigration system, the "Chancenkarte".
What is it and how does it work?
As the first country to establish this system, Canada is using it since 1967 and further developed it since.
The system is based on a set of points that can be achieved by fulfilling certain criteria. In Germany, the following criteria to be used for determining the final score are thought to be:
Age
Education
Work-Experience
Language Qualification/Proficiency
The more criteria an applicant fulfills the higher the end score they will achieve. It is yet to be determined what the minimum score will be in the end to pass this test.
We hope that the score will be fairly determined so that even applicants that might not fulfill some of the requirements still have a fair chance to use this system.
Why would it be important for Germany to adapt it?
Germany is experiencing a skilled labor shortage that hasn't been seen in a long time. Based on research and statistics from the Institute of Employment Research (IAB) Germany is facing a shortage of around 1.74 million vacant positions in the country, without a way to fill these by relying only on the German workforce.
Implementing the new immigration would be beneficial to solving two problems currently overshadowing Germany. A hard-to-grasp, overly bureaucratic system for immigrants and the skilled labor shortage.
Currently, the skilled labor force or academics can solely depend on the "Bluecard" which requires harder requirements compared to the "Chancenkarte" planned to be introduced by Hubertus Heil. The introduction of such would create a simpler, less bureaucratic, and quicker process. Thus not only making the whole immigration process easier for qualified people but also helping with the skilled labor shortage.
What else needs to change to successfully implement it?
The suggestion of minister Hubertus Heil to implement such a point based-system received praise, as well as resistance and criticism.
Part of the criticism stems from the idea that Germany not only needs a less bureaucratic system for the immigration of skilled labor force but also a more open approach when it comes to the recognition and legitimation of foreign certificates (university degrees, trainee degrees).
If a skilled and qualified immigrant can't get his degree from his home country recognized or legitimated in Germany then an easier way of immigration won't do him much good. Here we agree. Not only does Germany need to implement an easier and less bureaucratic way to immigrate into the country, but also becomes more open to foreign degrees and their recognition.
What's there to hope for?
As Germany is not known for the speed with which the local bureaucracy adapts to changes, we do hope that for this particular very important matter it will make an exception.
To fight and counter the skilled labor force deficit a new, more powerful solution needs to emerge and be adapted.