The German economy becomes the second biggest loser in the world

The Boston Consulting Group calculates that the labor shortage loses Germany about $84 billion (€86 billion) in economic output annually.

According to the study conducted by the management consulting company and published, Monday, the losses in the German economy are the second highest after the United States.

The study was conducted by the experts, Johann Harnos and Yanina Kugel in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration of the United Nations, and based their calculations on Germany on figures issued by the German Nuremberg Institute for Market Research and Employment, which reported that there were 1.9 million vacant jobs in the second quarter of this year.

“This is about a million more job openings than the long-term average,” Harnos told dpa.

“We and economists see this as a structural defect”.

According to the two experts’ calculations, each of these million employees who aren’t available now would have achieved a contribution to the economic output of about $84,000 per person annually, or a total of $84 billion.

Even assuming 300,000 to 400,000 migrant labor arrivals per year, the number of people of working age in Germany will fall by three million by 2035 and by nine million by 2050.

“The cost of the $84 billion would be even greater if we didn’t face this,” Kugel said.

Harnos suggested that Germany hire workers from countries whose population is still growing.

“One possibility is to train workers there in their countries of origin before they come to Germany,” he said.

He explained that this would be beneficial for migrants, countries of origin and countries of destination, noting the possibility of applying such measures in India, Nigeria, Indonesia and Egypt.

“We should have non-ideological policies… If the shortage of skilled workers increases, we will have political discussions in a completely different tone,” Kugel said, referring to the costs of pension and health systems.

“Where migration occurs on a large scale, acceptance is also significantly higher,” he added, referring to cities such as Munich, where a very high proportion of immigrants is accompanied by a parallel decline in the proportion of extremists.

The experts recommended German small and medium-sized companies increasingly look to the international labor market – and not just to replace local workers who are leaving.

They emphasized that “the more diverse the companies, the more innovative they are,” referring to US technology companies that employ a large number of immigrants.