“Without employees with foreign passports, there would be even bigger gaps in the German labor market.” This is according to a statement from the Federal Employment Agency (BA). The growth in employment has been “exclusively driven by foreign employees for quite some time now”. The BA’s analysis focuses specifically on men and women with Syrian citizenship. It does not include around 150,000 people from Syria who were naturalized between 2020 and 2023 and have been German citizens ever since.
Seven percent of the foreign population
Around 974,000 people with Syrian citizenship were living in Germany in November 2024. They make up almost seven percent of the foreign population. Syrians are now the third largest foreign population group after the BA – after 1.54 million Turkish and 1.3 million Ukrainian citizens.
Employed in bottleneck occupations
Of the approximately 974,000 people of Syrian nationality of working age (15 years and older), around 287,000 were in employment in September 2024, according to BA figures – 236,000 of them in jobs subject to social security contributions. At that time, the employment rate, including marginal jobs, was 41.7 percent. In 2024, six out of ten people with Syrian citizenship worked as qualified specialists. A good two-fifths of them were employed in a bottleneck occupation in which specialists are in short supply. These include, for example, car mechanics, bus drivers, nursing professionals and dental assistants.
Women provide care or undergo training
The employment rate of men and women continues to differ. Almost one in five women with Syrian citizenship is not available to the labor market, according to the BA. There are reasons for this: care work such as childcare and caring for relatives. In addition, many women are still undergoing school or vocational training, attending integration courses or labor market policy measures such as vocational integration or further training.
Important contribution to more employment
The BA study comes to a positive conclusion. The unemployment rate and that of people with Syrian nationality who, for example, receive a citizen’s income or basic income support, has “visibly decreased”. And: Syrian citizens are making “an important contribution” to employment growth in Germany.
About the study by the Federal Employment Agency: Employment Agency | Labour market situation of Syrian nationals
tun25021802