Both in politics and online, the debate around immigration tends to focus on limiting ‘irregular immigration’. Social researcher Andreas Herteux argues Germany should be more concerned with the skilled workers who are leaving.
Germany has a migration problem that hardly anyone is talking about: a high number of immigrants are leaving the country, and among them are people Germany urgently needs – well educated, employed, linguistically integrated and internationally mobile.
While politicians and the public argue about borders, deportations and asylum, a second migration movement is taking place, almost silently, in the opposite direction.
The Institute for Employment Research has presented extensive data on this through its International Mobility Panel of Migrants in Germany.
In the first wave, around 50,000 immigrants were surveyed: 26 percent had considered leaving, and around three percent had concrete plans.
A follow-up survey now shows that 2.6 percent of the immigrants examined had left Germany. Extrapolated, that amounts to approximately 260,000 people.
Migration Does Not Automatically Mean Flight and Asylum
Before the usual political reflexes arise from this, some conceptual clarity is needed. An immigrant is not the same as a refugee. Foreign citizenship is not the same as having a ‘migration background’. Labour immigration follows different rules from asylum, family reunification or educational migration.
The IAB study is not a study of “refugees”, but of a mixed population. It covers immigrants between the ages of 18 and 65 who were registered in the data of the Federal Employment Agency. These include labour migrants, educational migrants, people who arrived through family reunification and refugees.
The 260,000 people who left are therefore neither 260,000 skilled workers nor 260,000 refugees, but a mix of both and others. This distinction is crucial.
Refugees Are Less Likely to Want to Leave
The first survey already revealed an uncomfortable pattern. Refugees and people who had arrived through family reunification showed a lower tendency to emigrate.
The tendency was higher among people from EU countries and among those who migrated for work or education.
So more highly qualified people considered leaving more frequently. Good German and English skills were also associated with greater mobility.
Qualifications, language and a secure status create options.
A well-educated specialist does not have to put up with poor conditions permanently. Other countries are looking for the same people.
A Swiss plane takes off. Skilled workers and integrated immigrants tend to be better equipped to leave Germany and move elsewhere. Image by Norbert from Pixabay
The follow-up survey brings the picture into sharper focus. Overall, those who emigrated were younger, had spent less time in Germany and earned less on average than those who stayed.
Among those who had previously expressed plans to emigrate, however, highly educated people, people with very good English skills and those with German or EU citizenship or a permanent residence permit were more common.
Emigration is therefore not simply the opposite of successful integration. Good integration in particular can make mobility possible.
Bureaucracy Is Only Part of the Problem
Sixty percent of those who emigrated returned to their country of origin, while 40 percent moved on to another country.
Partnerships and family were cited most frequently. These were followed by burdensome bureaucracy at 32 percent.
Professional reasons were cited by 29 percent, problems in the housing market by 27 percent and the economic situation by 22 percent. But 19 percent also cited experiences of discrimination as a reason for leaving.
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Even more remarkable are the findings from the first wave of the survey.
Almost two-thirds reported having perceived discrimination in at least one area of life. Only around one-third felt, at best, somewhat welcome.
People who experienced discrimination more frequently were significantly more likely to express thoughts of leaving Germany and concrete plans to do so.
Social contacts with Germans, an emotional attachment to Germany and a strong sense of being welcome, by contrast, are likely to increase the inclination to stay.
The social climate is therefore not a minor, soft aspect of immigration policy. It itself becomes a factor in Germany’s attractiveness as a location.
Integration Is Not Decided in the Statute Book
Germany often discusses integration as something the immigrant must achieve: learning the language, working, following the rules, fitting in. These expectations are legitimate. But they describe only one side.
A person can learn German, have their qualifications recognised, find a job, pay taxes and still realise after a few years that they have neither found their place in society nor been made to feel welcome.
INTERVIEW: Germany talks about immigrants integrating… but it goes two ways’
An integration problem then becomes a problem of Germany’s attractiveness as a location.
To be clear, we’re not talking about an abstract group here. For example, at the end of 2025, 71,480 working doctors in Germany held foreign citizenship –16 percent of the practising medical workforce.
The actual significance of immigration is even greater, because naturalised doctors no longer appear as foreigners in this figure.
In nursing, around one in five employees now holds foreign citizenship.
Employment growth in recent years would have been significantly weaker without immigration.
A hospital therefore experiences immigration differently from an online comments section. The departure of a Syrian female doctor, a Romanian male doctor or a Filipino nurse is not a statistical footnote.
Staff stand behind a door of the cardiac lab in Quedlinburg. Many immigrants and skilled workers said they’d consider leaving Saxony-Anhalt if the AfD takes power there. (Photo by Ronny HARTMANN / AFP)
It may mean that one person is subsequently missing from the emergency department, the ward or the duty roster.
READ ALSO: Why a Darmstadt hospital is showing what Germany would look like without immigration
The Wrong Migration Debate
In retrospect, 53 percent of those who actually emigrated would have liked to stay in Germany longer or permanently, and 57 percent had already considered returning to Germany.
This is perhaps the most remarkable finding of the entire study.
Many of these people did not fundamentally reject Germany. Instead, not enough was done to retain them.
For an ageing country, therefore, what matters is not only how many people come. Increasingly, what matters is who stays and who leaves again.
A policy that conflates different forms of immigration can hardly answer this question meaningfully.
The state must organise asylum, limit irregular migration, demand integration and at the same time recruit and retain qualified immigrants. These are different tasks. They must not be conflated in the debate either.
The IAB data reveals the major risk here: It is precisely mobile, qualified and already well-integrated people who have alternatives.
They can respond to bureaucracy, a lack of professional prospects or a social environment in which they permanently feel they do not belong by moving to another country. People who do not have these alternatives are likely to stay.
For an ageing economy, that is an exceptionally poor selection.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
