Immigration to Germany
| Population background | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| 82 million | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Germany
|
65,000,000 |
 Russia
|
3,500,000 (estimate, 2013) |
 Poland
|
2,850,000 |
 Turkey
|
2,714,000–2,800,000 (including Turkish Kurds) |
 Italy
|
830,000 |
 Romania
|
657,000 |
 Serbia
|
313,198-500,000 |
 Greece
|
395,000g(2012 estimate) |
 Syria
|
366,000 (2015) |
 Netherlands
|
350,000 |
 Austria
|
345,620 |
 Croatia
|
227,510 350,000 (est.) |
 Albania
|
300,000 (including Kosovo) |
 Ukraine
|
229,510 |
 Bulgaria
|
226,926 (Bulgarians citizens) |
 China
|
204,828 |
 Portugal
|
170,000 |
 Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
158,158 |
 Hungary
|
156,812 |
 Vietnam
|
150,000 |
 Iraq
|
150,000 |
 Morocco
|
140,000 |
 Afghanistan
|
131,454 |
 France
|
126,739 (French citizens) |
 Spain
|
122,218 (Spanish citizens) |
 United Kingdom
|
115,000 (British citizens) |
 Brazil
|
113,716 |
 United States
|
111,529 (US citizens) |
 Macedonia
|
95,976 |
 India
|
86,324 (Indian citizens) |
 Nigeria
|
80,000 |
 Iran
|
72,581 |
Germany is the second most popular migration destination in the world, after the United States. On 1 January 2005, a new immigration law came into effect. The political background to this new law was that Germany, for the first time ever, acknowledged to be an "immigration country". The practical changes to immigration procedures were relatively minor. New immigration categories, such as "highly skilled professional" and "scientist" were introduced to attract valuable professionals to the German labour market. The development within German immigration law shows that immigration of skilled employees and academics has eased while the labour market remains closed for unskilled workers.
In April 2012, European Blue Card legislation was implemented in Germany, allowing highly skilled non-EU citizens easier access to work and live in Germany, subject to certain requirements.
As of 2014, one out of five Germans has at least partial roots outside of Germany.
Towards the end of World War II, and in its aftermath, up to 12 million refugees of ethnic Germans, so-called "Heimatvertriebene" (German for "expellees", literally "homeland displaced persons") had to migrate from the former German areas, as for instance Silesia or East Prussia, to the new formed States of post-war Germany and Allied-occupied Austria, because of changing borderlines in Europe. A big wave of immigration to Germany started in the 1960s. Due to a shortage of laborers during the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") in the 1950s and 1960s, the West German government signed bilateral recruitment agreements with Italy in 1955, Greece in 1960, Turkey in 1961, Morocco in 1963, Portugal in 1964, Tunisia in 1965 and Yugoslavia in 1968. These agreements allowed the recruitment of so-called Gastarbeiter to work in the industrial sector in jobs that required few qualifications. Children born to Gastarbeiter received the right to reside in Germany but were not granted citizenship; this was known as the Aufenthaltsberechtigung ("right of residence"). Many of the descendants of those Gastarbeiter still live in Germany and many have acquired German citizenship.
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Wikipedia