http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000616/2371238s.htm
USA Today 6-16-00
Page 24A
Germany looks outside to fill high-tech jobs But filling slots with workers
from abroad has struck a national nerve
By Steven Komarow
USA TODAY
BERLIN -- Germany's government will begin issuing U.S.-style work permits in
August to foreign computer experts who want to move here. But already
Germany is struggling to accept that to compete in the world, it might need
to make it easier for non-Germans to become citizens.
''This really has started a serious debate about immigration policies,''
says Axel Zerdick, a technology professor in Berlin. ''We are on the right
way there.''
Germany is well-known for world-class engineering that has produced
Mercedes-Benz and BMW automobiles, but it has been caught off-guard by the
explosion in information technology.
German companies say they need more database programmers, Web page designers
and experts in Internet software. Major corporations have scrambled to the
government for help from outsiders.
To answer the demands of corporations such as automaker DaimlerChrysler and
Siemens electrical engineering and electronics company, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder has pushed through a program for temporarily admitting up
to 20,000 foreign technology workers this year.
That won't come close to filling all the vacancies, companies say, but it
will help ease the pressure.
Workers from other European Union countries don't need the permits.
But those countries have their own shortages in high-skilled labor and can't
fill the gap in Germany. So German industry is looking to India and the Far
East.
That concept is proving difficult for Germans to accept, especially when
unemployment is just under 10%, more than twice the U.S. rate. Schroeder has
promised to attack joblessness, which remains stubbornly high despite an
otherwise strong economy.
Joblessness is particularly high in the former East Germany, where there are
pockets of unemployment 20% or higher.
So filling jobs with foreigners, even if they are jobs for which Germans
don't qualify, has struck a national nerve. Jokes abound. One radio station
in Berlin occasionally halts its programming, then delivers an announcement:
''Our server is down. Sahib, come quick!''
But others won't dismiss it with a joke. ''Kinder statt Inder'' or
''Children, not Indians,'' is the slogan of unions and conservatives who say
the government should train Germans for these jobs.
Meanwhile, some of the best available help doesn't want to come to a country
well- known for its hatred of foreigners.
''The German people are thinking, 'the foreign people are coming to get our
jobs,' '' says Uzay Mericten, 30, a computer expert in Frankfurt. Mericten
moved from Turkey to Germany with his parents when he was 3 years old.
Importing workers is nothing new to Germany.