Germany Ramps Up Internship Programs for Refugees
Date Posted: August 2, 2016
Posted In: Workforce,
From Bloomberg Businessweek: Three years ago, Adham fled Syria when his village was bombed and many friends and relatives were killed. After passing through Lebanon and Turkey, he landed in Germany, where he’s starting a three-year apprenticeship at Daimler’s 110-year-old plant just outside Stuttgart. “I lost my entire life in Syria, and now I have a new start,” says the 19-year-old, who asked that his full name not be used for fear of reprisals against family members still in his homeland. “I like my work a lot,” he adds in accented but smooth German, “and I want to learn more.”
Adham was one of 40 refugees in a four-month pilot project that began last November, taking German classes and working in a Mercedes factory for part of the day. While Daimler hired only Adham and one other worker, it says almost all the rest got jobs at suppliers or local companies. This summer, Daimler expanded the program to 300 people.
The automaker is among scores of companies in Germany with programs to train some of the 1 million-plus refugees who’ve arrived since 2014. About 100 companies have joined Wir Zusammen, or We Together, an initiative aimed at integrating new arrivals. The group says it’s found internships for 1,800 refugees and apprenticeships for an additional 300. Chemical maker Evonik Industries took a trainee prep course designed for local youths who don’t fare well in school and opened it to asylum seekers. Steelmaker Klöckner is financing computer-coding classes for refugees. Consulting firm PwC is teaching the basics of German job-seeking.
Even the most optimistic projections show that only a small portion of refugees will have permanent employment anytime soon. And a spate of violent attacks by recent arrivals, including a July 24 bombing outside a music festival by a Syrian said to be upset he was denied asylum, could weaken public support for aid to migrants. A survey by the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung found that as of June, the 30 companies in Germany’s benchmark DAX index employed 54 refugees in full-time jobs. While they had also created 3,000 internships and apprenticeships for them, only about 500 of those positions had been filled. The report prompted Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel to urge German industry to do more for the new arrivals. “We need you and are counting on you,” the minister wrote in a letter to executives at the DAX companies.
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