Many Immigrants In Germany, Facing Discrimination, Consider Leaving

Forbes

17-06-2025

Friedrichstrasse Shopping Street in central Berlin
getty
Many immigrants living in Germany are considering leaving the country for another, driven by economic concerns as well as discrimination, according to a new report from the country's federal research agency. With results showing that only just over half of immigrants intend to stay in Germany permanently, the report signals trouble for Europe's largest economy which is already struggling with historic labor shortages.
The report, published by Germany's Institute for Employment Research, shows around 57% of people surveyed saying they intend to stay on in Germany, with around 26% stating they have considered leaving in the past year. The reasons people want to leave vary. Those who want to return to their countries of origin cited a desire to rejoin family, while people who are rather looking to settle elsewhere often cited economic opportunities, bureaucracy and tax burdens as reasons for wanting to leave Germany.
Alongside these issues, the politics of immigration in Germany, as well as a high level of discrimination foreigners are subjected to, play a significant role.
'perceptions of discrimination – especially in interactions with authorities, police, and at the workplace – greatly increases emigration tendencies,' write the authors of the report.
The report also notes that people who are more educated and economically successful, as well as those who show better success at integration, tend to be the ones more likely to be considering moving on. This means, according to the report's authors, that 'those most urgently needed to secure Germany's future labor supply are also those most inclined to leave.'
Germany has long struggled with serious labor shortages, as older citizens age out of the workforce, with estimates of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of labor migrants needed to stabilize the market. Subsequent governments in Germany have attempted to ameliorate this by cutting red tape and giving out more work visas, but the tense politics over immigration - and in particular irregular migration - in Germany is complicating matters.
The rise and electoral gains of the stridently anti-immigration AfD party have pushed migration to the top of the political agenda, with recently-elected center-right Chancellor Friedrich Merz coming in promising to clamp down on people seeking shelter in the country.
While irregular migration (think asylum seekers and other people seeking protection) and labor migration are two different matters, they have become progressively more linked in the German discourse, particularly by the AfD. In the run-up to state elections last year, various prominent business leaders spoke out against the AfD, warning that their harsh rhetoric over immigration overall, including taking aim at workplace diversity initiatives, threatened to dissuade prospective labor migrants from moving to the regions in Germany where they are needed most.
This latest report adds further weight to those concerns, with discrimination apparently playing a significant role in foreign residents' calculations. The report recommends the government implement measures to, among other things, ease bureaucracy, support family integration and address workplace discrimination.
'Only when immigrants feel like fully included members of society," write the authors, "with real opportunities for participation and professional advancement – are they likely to choose Germany as their long-term home.'