Berlin:
German hospitals and other employers fear a labor shortage as many Syrian refugees return home after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, a concern backed by a study released Friday.
Healthcare providers have warned that more than 5,000 Syrian doctors work in German medical facilities, often in rural areas, and that they and other staff will be difficult to replace.
Europe’s largest economy has taken in about a million refugees from war-ravaged Syria in an influx that peaked in 2015 under ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Although initially greeted warmly, the mass arrival caused a backlash that fueled the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Since the fall of Assad, conservative and AfD politicians have called on Syrians to return to their homeland despite continued insecurity there.
Many employers fear this could worsen Germany’s rapidly aging labor shortage, a concern backed by a study from the Institute for Employment Research published on Friday.
Large-scale returns “can have noticeable regional and sector-specific effects – especially in those sectors, fields and regions that already suffer from labor shortages,” says institute researcher Yuliya Kosyakova.
It says there are 287,000 Syrian nationals working in Germany, many of whom who arrived in recent years are still taking language and so-called integration courses.
Syrian men mainly work in transport and logistics, manufacturing, food and hospitality, healthcare and construction, while women are more represented in social and cultural services.
News magazine Der Spiegel reported that 5,758 Syrian doctors work in Germany, citing data from the German Medical Association.
“We can understand that many of them want to return to their home countries and are urgently needed there,” Gerald Gass, chairman of the German Hospital Association, told the magazine.
But he warned that they play an important role, especially in smaller towns, warning: “If they leave Germany in large numbers, this will undoubtedly be felt in the workforce.”
Because many Syrians also work in healthcare, their departure would be a “serious blow to elderly care,” Isabell Halletz, director of the Nursing Employers’ Association, told news channel NTV.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)