Integration Policy Flopping in Germany

Berlin has admitted that it is barely making headway in integrating its refugee population, the Financial Times reports:

Up to three quarters of Germany’s refugees will still be unemployed in five years’ time, according to a government minister, in a stark admission of the challenges the country faces in integrating its huge migrant population.

Aydan Özoğuz, commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration, told the Financial Times that only a quarter to a third of the newcomers would enter the labour market over the next five years, and “for many others we will need up to 10”. […]

“There has been a shift in perceptions,” Ms Özoğuz told the FT. Many of the first Syrian refugees to arrive in Germany were doctors and engineers, but they were succeeded by “many, many more who lacked skills”.

The labor statistics offer a particularly bleak picture. The employment rate for refugees in Germany stands at just 17%, and the number of those looking for work has increased from 322,000 to 484,000 since last July—an increase of 50%:

With Angela Merkel seemingly cruising to an easy victory in September’s elections, the worst political blowback from her open-door migrant policy may be behind her for now. But the hard economic truths suggest that Germany will be coping with the consequences of her willkommenskultur for many years to come—and as of now, the system is abjectly failing to handle the challenge.

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