Corporate Immigration- Germany.

While the German hi-tech and IT industry is recovering fast from the recent recession, a new problem is now hampering growth: according to a study recently undertaken by the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media eV (BITKOM), there are over 20,000 vacancies for qualified software developers, IT consultants and IT project managers in the German IT industry. Two-thirds of the companies polled are looking exclusively for specialists with a university or polytechnic degree. While 25% already employ foreign specialists, another 25% of human resources managers polled indicated that they intend to employ foreign workers because the pool of qualified IT specialists in Germany is too small. The situation is similar for engineers with other specializations. With the Association of German Engineers predicting that an extra 30,000 engineering jobs will be created in 2007, the supply of graduates from German universities will not be sufficient to meet demand.

The IT sector is privileged in that a special work permit category exists for qualified IT personnel that is not bound to an above-average salary. Other engineering branches depend instead on the possibility to apply for a settlement permit. As this permit is exclusively designed to encourage highly qualified and economically successful foreign workers to take up permanent residence in Germany, the requirements are stricter than those for a temporary work and residence permit. This also applies to the salary requirement that applicants must meet, which is currently a minimum of €84,000 per year.

Other industry sectors have regularly argued this the threshold is too high, as the settlement permit for engineers without an IT/telecommunications degree remains the only option for nationals of most countries. Recently, even BITKOM complained, notwithstanding the existing special category for IT personnel. Its recent members' poll indicated that small and medium-sized German companies wish to hire foreign personnel with a settlement permit in order to fill their vacancies for highly skilled IT engineers.

As a reaction to lobbying, the Bundesrat (upper house of Parliament) has now introduced a legislative proposal to reduce the salary requirement to €63,000 annually. Although still at the proposal stage, it can be expected that this threshold will be lowered, as the commission evaluating the effects of the New Immigration Act of 2005 has also recommended this in its final report.

"International Law Office"