About 266,000 Ukrainians had found jobs in Germany in July, an increase of 71,000 on the year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday during a Job Turbo discussion round in Berlin.
Looking at the top eight countries of origin for asylum seekers, 704,000 people were employed, also an increase of 71,000 compared to the previous year, he said.
“Job Turbo has contributed to this increase since October 2023,” said Scholz, who described the initiative of Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil as a success.
Heil’s program is aimed at quickly finding work for refugees. According to his figures, in April about 192,000 Ukrainians had full-time jobs, while another 48,000 had part-time jobs.
The goal is to create jobs not only for Ukrainians but also for others, and that these jobs do not consist mainly of low-level work.
In November, Heil said that 400,000 refugees had completed or were about to do an integration course and would be ready for the labor market.
Scholz called from all sides for ‘maximum pragmatism’. “I can imagine how difficult it is to start from the bottom up in a foreign country, and possibly in a completely new area of work,” he said.
He paid tribute to German companies, hospitals, daycare centers and retirement homes for employing refugees who did not speak German.
Heil promised to continue the effort. He has been pushing for months to remove obstacles to the integration of Ukrainian refugees into the German labor market.
Professional skills needed to be recognized more quickly, he said, along with more accommodation in conurbations and an expansion of childcare. Heil called on companies not to wait until Ukrainians spoke better German.
