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Man at the tap: There is a lack of assistants in the catering industry
Photo: Monika Skolimowska / dpa
They should come from abroad and only stay temporarily: The Federal Employment Agency wants to address the labor shortage in critical areas such as airports or restaurants with additional unskilled workers. To do this, it is using a regulation from the new skilled worker immigration law, which will come into force at the beginning of March.
"The new short-term employment offers employers in seasonal industries or during peak order times a good opportunity to quickly hire foreign workers," said Vanessa Ahuja, board member of the Federal Agency, to SPIEGEL. »Interested employers can conveniently submit applications online to the employment agency from March onwards.«
For the current year, the Federal Employment Agency has now set a quota of 25,000 people who can come to Germany and be employed as short-term employees for a maximum of eight months. However, there are conditions for this. The weekly working hours must be at least 30 hours.
No restriction to specific industries
It is expressly not about skilled workers, but about unskilled workers. Professional qualifications or studies are not required. Employees must be paid according to the collective agreement or under the same conditions as in a collective agreement.
Employers are also obliged to cover travel costs. The quota is not limited to specific industries. The only exception is agriculture, for which there are special seasonal worker regulations.
The solution with the quota is reminiscent of a regulation from 2022, which, however, flopped at the time. At that time, 2,000 assistants from Turkey were to be temporarily recruited to get the luggage chaos at the airports under control.