Shortage of skilled workers | Immigrants are indispensable in many professions

A third of those employed in nursing professions in Germany have an immigration background. Photo: dpa/Friso Gentsch Wiesbaden.  Care, catering, construction: employees with a history of immigration are indispensable in many areas of the German economy. More than a quarter (27 percent) of all employees in 2025 had roots abroad, as the Federal Statistical Office announced based on data from the microcensus.

In many professions in this country, people with a history of immigration are represented above average: According to the Wiesbaden authorities, this applied to more than half of the cooks last year (56 percent). It was also the majority of employees in food production (55 percent), floor laying (54 percent), scaffolding (51 percent) and meat processing (51 percent).

The proportion of employees with a migrant background is also significantly above the overall economic average in other so-called bottleneck occupations in which skilled workers are scarce: professional drivers (41 percent), in hotel service (40 percent) and in nursing and geriatric care (33 percent).

According to the Federal Office's definition, a person has an immigration history if they or both parents have immigrated to Germany since 1950. The microcensus is a sample survey in which around one percent of the population in Germany is surveyed every year.

According to the data, in 2025 the lowest proportion of employees with an immigrant background in a shortage occupation in Germany was in the emergency services (7 percent), and it was also below average in agriculture (15 percent).  dpa/nd

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