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Syrian refugees arrive at Friedland camp in northern Germany on April 4, 2016. REUTERS / Kai Pfaffenbach

To remedy a cruel shortage of manpower, the German government adopted a law allowing from March 1 next to welcome non-Europeans on the job market. Before a summit on the subject, Chancellor Angela Merkel devoted her weekly podcast to it.

With our correspondent in Berlin, Pascal Thibaut

Caregivers, computer scientists, engineers and artisans: the list of trades and sectors where Germany lacks skilled labor is growing. Unemployment is at its lowest and 2.5 million people from another country of the European Union are already working in Germany, but that is no longer enough.

As of March 1, a selected immigration law comes into force. To prepare for its application, a summit is held on the evening of December 16 at the Chancellery. In her weekly podcast, Chancellor Angela Merkel highlighted the risks of the current situation for the attractiveness of her country.

" We have to use skilled foreign workers or our companies will move elsewhere, which we do not want, of course ," she warned. This means that visas are granted quickly and that information circulates between German companies looking for workers and the countries where these people could come from . ”

Asia and South America are targeted by this project but also the Balkans for the health sector. The learning of German abroad must be extended with the Goethe Institutes. The employment agency will enter into cooperation with certain countries. With the new law, it will no longer be necessary to check whether a person in Germany or in the European Union is available for a given job.

►Read also: In deficit of labor, Berlin presents a selected immigration law