Only seven per cent of German companies are currently employing refugees or have employed them in the past two years. These are the results of a survey of over 1,000 personnel managers conducted jointly by theIfo Institute and the recruitment agency Randstad, which were published on Thursday (February 25). Only large companies with 250+ employees boast a slightly higher share of refugees (10 per cent). The share of refugees recruited is particularly high in the catering industry, where 28 per cent of personnel managers reported recently hiring refugees.

34 per cent of companies are planning to recruit refugees this year or in 2017. A lack of language skills was cited as the main barrier to recruitment. This was cited as a “major hurdle” by 86 percent of companies and as a “minor hurdle” by another 11 per cent. It was followed by legal framework conditions (cited by 49 per cent “major hurdle”, 32 per cent “minor hurdle”) and qualification levels (46 per cent “major hurdle”, 43 per cent “minor hurdle”).