While the inflow of migrants was a big plus for the German economy, it was still relatively small compared to the pace of population decline. Between 2014 and 2015 the number of new arrivals spiked more than eightfold to about one million, but Germany would have to accept even more—about 1.5 million—every year between 2015 and 2030 in order to maintain its current balance of working-age people to retirees.
