Germany issued more than 60,000 visas under the German Skilled Workers Immigration Act in 2021. Such information was confirmed for SchengenVisaInfo.com by an official of the Federal Foreign Office.
The German Skilled Workers Immigration Act started being fully effective in March 2020. During the first nine months, from March until December 2020, the country managed to issue almost 30,000 visas to qualified workers and trainees from third countries.
This indicates that the number of skilled workers and trainees who benefited from Germany’s Immigration Act in 2021 increased by around 50% compared to 2020, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
More specific data pertaining to 2021 are yet to be revealed.
Even though the issuing process for this type of visa was primarily delayed due to border closures, travel bans, and inactivity of the majority of German visa processing centres, Germany was still able to issue visas to thousands of skilled workers.
During its first nine months of operation, from March 2020 until December 2020, German embassies in Belgrade (Serbia), Manila (the Philippines), Hanoi (Vietnam), Bangalore (India), and Istanbul (Turkey) issued the most visas under the Skilled Immigration Act.
During this period, 2,024 visas were issued for nationals of Serbia, 1,773 for nationals of the Philippines, 1,378 for nationals of Vietnam, 1,197 for nationals of India, and 1,183 for nationals of Turkey.
In addition, skilled workers from four Western Balkan countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Serbia – are also among the main nationals who benefited from the Skilled Workers Immigration Act.
Still, Germany needs hundreds of thousands new workers per year to fill the labour market as the number of workers of typical professional age is expected to drop drastically.
“In spite of the higher number of visas issued in 2021 for highly skilled workers, the number is still not enough to fill the vacant labour positions in Germany, as the Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck has recently noted that the country needs about 400,000 new workers annually in order to close the labour shortage gap,” a migration expert from SchengenVisaInfo.com notes.
The work visa under the Skilled Immigration Act is issued to persons who have either completed qualified vocational training in Germany or to those who have acquired a vocational qualification abroad, which has been recognised as equivalent to German qualified vocational training.
Persons who hold a higher education degree which is comparable to a higher education degree in Germany, are also eligible to get a work visa.
