German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with corporations Wednesday to discuss why so few refugees are able to get jobs.
Merkel announced new “integration laws” in April to make it easier for refugees to join the workforce. The government promised 100,000 new job opportunities for the more than one million asylum seekers in the country.
Five months later, around 100 migrants have been hired by Germany’s blue-chip companies.
Merkel met with corporate leaders Wednesday to urge them to employ more refugees. While the companies agreed they would like to hire more migrants, language barriers and a lack qualifications often make them unemployable in the short-term.
“Given that around 80 percent of asylum seekers are not highly qualified and may not yet have a high level of German proficiency, we have primarily offered jobs that do not require technical skills or a considerable amount of interaction in German,” a spokesman for Deutsche Post DHL said in an email to Reuters.
Merkel said the lack of results from her integration reforms, simply means more “viable solutions” need to be created to get migrants into the workforce.
“Many are in integration courses or waiting to get on them,” Merkel told Inforadio rbb Thursday. “So I think we will need to show some patience, but must be ready at any time to develop viable solutions.”
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