Immigrants indispensable in many professions
Germany is reliant on people with a migrant background, especially in sectors suffering from a shortage of skilled labour.
Wiesbaden (d.de) - Employees with a migrant background are indispensable in many sectors of the German economy, be it in production and manufacturing, restaurants and catering, nursing care or passenger and goods transport. More than a quarter (27 percent) of all employees had non-German roots in 2025. This is revealed by figures published by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) from its microcensus household survey for 2025. It surveys around 800,000 people in 400,000 private households and collective living quarters.
The proportion is particularly high in sectors suffering from a skilled labour shortage. It is 56 percent among chefs, 55 percent in the food production industry and 47 percent among bus and tram drivers as well as among service personnel in the catering sector. The share of workers with a migrant background was also significantly above average in geriatric and nursing care (33 percent), among professional drivers in goods transport (41 percent) and in the hotel service sector (40 percent).
As would be expected, the number of those in gainful employment increases the longer they spend time in Germany. After 20 to 25 years in the country, roughly 87 percent of men and 79 percent of women from the Middle East were gainfully employed. In the population as a whole, the employment rate among those aged 25 to 59 was 88 percent for men and 81 percent for women.
