The renowned Bertelsmann Foundation has published a new study according to which Germany needs hundreds of thousands of immigrants per year to meet its labour needs in the coming decades. Around 280,000 international workers would have to start each year until 2040 in order to prevent the potential of the labour force from collapsing.

The study ‘Immigration and the Labour Market’ points out that otherwise the number of people in employment would fall by ten percent during this period. According to the analysis, the individual federal states are affected very differently by a lack of immigration. The decline in the labour force by 2040 would be particularly severe in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saarland, at well over ten percent in each case. The minus would be less pronounced in Hamburg, Berlin and Brandenburg, with values well below this mark.