Germany Immigration

Germany with the largest economy in Europe has the greatest shortage of IT staff. The German Information Technology Association estimates that twenty-five percent of IT vacancies remain unfilled. Germany and the UK together account for half of Europe's IT industry, and IT staff are among the largest beneficiaries of the 75,000 work permits (formerly called green cards) issued each year by each of these countries.

Starting in 2005, Germany is making a greater attempt to encourage highly skilled workers to move to Germany. While low skilled workers will still find it difficult to gain permission to work in Germany, highly skilled workers should find it easier to gain permanent residency. The professions most in need are natural scientists (biologists, chemists, physicists) engineers, professors and scientific personnel in high technology areas. Because of the great difficulty of obtaining work permission for unskilled workers, we only cover the procedure for skilled workers.