Only 19% of Ukrainian refugees have found work in Germany, which is more than three times less than in neighbouring Poland and the Netherlands. Germans are looking for a reason for the slow employment rate. Der Spiegel reports that the CDU opposition and municipal representatives accuse the German federal government of making a mistake by giving Ukrainians special rights and integrating them into Germany’s general welfare system. Some heads of municipalities are therefore demanding that the decision be reconsidered, as there is little incentive for refugees from Ukraine to get off the sofa and find work.
Matthias Jendrike of the SMO, who heads the state district of Nordhausen in Thuringia, calls his experience with Ukrainian refugees “sobering”. At the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Jendrike sent a bus to Berlin to pick up refugees because he hoped they would fill the needs of his labour-starved eastern German district. “I believed that Ukrainians would be easier to bring into the labour market than other refugees because they have education and knowledge about Germany,” Jendrike explains his motives to Der Spiegel magazine. The reality, however, turned out to be different, and most of the Ukrainians live in the country on welfare.
Jendrike blames the situation on the German federal government, which made a “completely wrong decision.” The decision in question is the decision of Berlin, which implied that from 1 June 2022 Ukrainian refugees will not receive the usual “payments to candidates for refugee status”, but will be integrated into the German social security system and will receive the so-called Bürgergeld – general civilian social security, which is almost 20% higher than the usual payments. €502 per month per person, instead of €410. In addition, because the Ukrainians were integrated into Germany’s social security system and separated from other refugees, “they were able to get separate social housing from the start, rather than living in communal hostel-shelters.”
“By doing so, they were made too comfortable,” Matthias Jendrike believes, “after that, of course, a sofa is nicer than a German language course.” Joachim Walter, the head of the district of Tübingen from the southern federal state of Baden-Württemberg for the CDU party, agrees with his East German colleague. “The willingness to work among those fleeing Ukraine has decreased significantly after they were transferred to the general civil welfare system,” Walter reports. He tells the German magazine about the situation in his district. Of the nearly 3,400 people who have taken refuge there, 60 have gone to work. Most of the adults – 1,960 receive social welfare, of whom only 720 attend free German language courses.
The objections of Joachim Walter and Matthias Jendrike are shared by other German municipal district heads. Der Spiegel points out that a few weeks ago, a congress of German district heads asked the government to ensure that “new refugees from the fighting in Ukraine who arrive in Germany do not immediately receive general social security”, but are on equal terms with other refugees. The heads of municipalities were also recently supported by the head of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst. “If something does not work, it is necessary to replace it,” the magazine quotes Wüst as saying.
The German magazine reminds that, according to statistics, now in Germany work only 19% of Ukrainians who arrived as refugees and are of working age. In other countries the share of employed Ukrainians is much higher: in Poland it is 66 per cent, and in the Netherlands even 70 per cent. 700 thousand Ukrainians in Germany receive general civil social security, “and as always there is a hard-to-determine number of refugees who additionally earn money by working illegally”.
Der Spiegel also agrees that Ukrainians are “placed in Germany above other newly arrived refugees” because they immediately receive general civilian social security and do not have to be vetted before being granted refugee status. Meanwhile, the government has only recently been able to calculate how much such status costs Ukrainians. Thus, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, presenting the budget for the next 2024 year, indicated that 700 thousand Ukrainians and general civilian social security for them will cost Germany €5.5 billion a year.
Germany will have to “discuss a sensitive issue”, the German publication said. When the leader of the opposition CDU Friedrich Merz raised the issue of “social tourism” by Ukrainians before the Bundestag in the autumn of 2022, he was met with a barrage of criticism, as “maximum solidarity towards Ukrainians was maintained” both by the public and at least by the main parties.
Since then, however, the CDU has become increasingly convinced that the issue of social security for Ukrainians has been wrongly resolved in Germany. “We need to clarify the question of why the number of war refugees in our country who have found work is so much lower than in other European countries,” Thorsten Frei, chief of staff of the joint CDU/CSU faction in the German parliament, tells the press. “The public’s willingness to help these people will only remain if they have the impression that refugees from Ukraine have first tried everything to help themselves,” the politician continues.
CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann also criticises the all-civilian social security for Ukrainians, Der Spiegel continues. “It should be obvious that everyone who receives social security in Germany and can work should also go to work,” the German magazine quotes the politician as saying. Linnemann goes further and criticises Scholz’s introduced and increased “general civilian social security”, in his opinion it also gives Germans themselves the impression that it is not necessary to work.
The voices of criticism from the opposition and municipal representatives are also joined by individual MPs from parties in the ruling coalition. “State-wide social security creates the wrong incentives for refugees, including those from Ukraine,” Der Spiegel quoted Frank Schaeffler, a deputy from the ruling liberal FDP, as saying. However, these are still isolated voices in the ruling coalition.
For his part, Herbert Brückner, an expert at the Institute for Labour Market and Occupational Studies, says that the importance of increased social security for Ukrainians in their low integration into the labour market should not be exaggerated. Brückner calls attention to the fact that 70 Ukrainian refugees do attend language courses and therefore cannot fully enter the labour market. However, if they successfully complete these courses, they will be able to find full employment – and Ukrainians have, in his opinion, “high professional qualifications”.
Brückner urges not to forget that, unlike refugees from other countries, the majority of Ukrainians are women (about 80 per cent), who often arrive in Germany with children or elderly relatives who need care. The situation with kindergartens in Germany is tense, “even for many German families it is difficult to find a kindergarten, and for refugees it is even more difficult,” Brückner points out. The labour market expert, however, is confident that in time most Ukrainian refugees will find work, overcoming the difficulties of language integration and recognition of qualifications.
The ruling SPD and the Union 90/Greens are defending Berlin’s policy with roughly the same arguments. Helge Lind of the SPDG agrees that “Ukrainian refugees should be integrated into the labour market”, but “that this does not happen instantly does not depend on supposedly high social security”. Lind criticises the “stoking of anti-refugee sentiment”, in his view “Germany has consciously decided to give Ukrainians and Ukrainian women a shoulder to lean on, and in such a debate one cannot lightly reconsider the decision”.
Ricarda Lang, chairwoman of the Greens faction, also agrees with her Social Democrat colleague. In a comment to Der Spiegel, the head of the Greens in the German parliament emphasises: “We should not engage in a contest of who will put forward the toughest demands.” Instead, she suggests “promoting things that will help municipalities locally.” The government, however, is also beginning to respond to the Germans’ increasingly vociferous outrage.
Labour Minister Hubertus Heil, a Social Democrat, has promised Ukrainians “turbot labour”. Under the government’s new plans, Ukrainians receiving general social security will have to report to municipal authorities every six weeks on their job search efforts, and in turn, the authorities will have to offer more employment options. In the future, for Ukrainians, “if there is insufficient co-operation, payments may be cut,” the German magazine writes.
“The federal government takes the worries of congestion and loss of control due to the high number of migrants seriously,” states Hubertus Heil in a commentary for Der Spiegel. “Therefore, those who have found protection in Germany must now also do their part”, the politician believes.