In need of talent, Germany lures young professionals

Schwabisch Hall, Germany

While much of southern Europe is struggling with soaring unemployment rates, a robust Germany is desperate for educated workers, and it is looking south.

In the last 18 months, it has recruited thousands of the Continent's best and brightest to this scenic town and many others like it, a migration of highly qualified young job-seekers that could set back Europe's stragglers even more, while giving Germany a further advantage.

Cristina Fernandez-Aparicio Ruiz, 36, is a newly arrived engineer from Spain, where unemployment just hit a depression-level 24.4 percent. She is working at an industrial company near here.

Her German is spotty. But the company, Ziehl-Abegg, assigned her a mentor. And if she needed help finding a doctor or going to the supermarket, the company was ready to help with that, too.

"They are very nice here," said Ms. Fernandez-Aparicio, from Madrid. "And at the moment there are no jobs in Spain."

The free movement of labor was a founding principle of the European Union, a central part of the effort to create a single, unified market. But in more prosperous times, few workers outside of Eastern Europe felt compelled to leave home.

That is changing under the pressures of the euro crisis and a harsh recession, and employers, governments and the migrants themselves are discovering that immigration, even when legal and nominally accepted, can raise tensions. And there is widespread agreement that Europe is entering a new era whose ramifications are only beginning to be understood.

Southern Europeans are relieved to find refuge in this largely rural region in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. But the strains of differing languages and cultures make many hesitate when it comes to longer commitments like registering their cars or signing up for two-year cellphone contracts.

The area is home to many of the small and medium-size family enterprises, known as the Mittelstand, that power Germany's industrial export economy. There are 7,500 open jobs in Heilbronn-Franken, the region where Schwabisch Hall is located, but the most dire need is for engineers.

When Hermann-Josef Pelgrim, the mayor, invited several journalists from southern Europe to write about job opportunities in Schwabisch Hall this year, the response to a glowing article by the Portuguese reporter was overwhelming. More than 15,000 unemployed Portuguese have since submitted their resumes. About 40 simply showed up.

In December, a planeload of 100 Spanish engineers flew to nearby Stuttgart for job interviews. Within a month, about a third had been hired. And some German companies have been plucking Spanish, Portuguese, Greek and Italian professionals from Internet sites like LinkedIn.

Yet the migration - while urgently needed by both sides - has stirred fears that it may be conferring yet another advantage on Europe's most powerful economy. German exporters have benefited from a euro dragged down in value by the struggling southern countries, and they are able to borrow money at super-low rates as investors seek safe havens. Now, as the southern countries watch their young people move north, some are grumbling of a brain drain as well.

"This generation of young people who are leaving are our best qualified ever," said Cesar Castel, the director of operations for the Spanish branch of Adecco, a Swiss recruiting firm. "It is a huge loss of investment for Spain. On average it cost us 60,000 euros to train each engineer, and they are leaving." That is about $80,000.

Mr. Castel says he used to find employees for Spanish companies. Now he finds Spaniards for foreign companies, many of them German.

If Spain's economy turns around in two years, Mr. Castel said, he expects 90 percent of the Spanish professionals to return home. If the recession lingers, the figures could drop precipitously as the workers marry and have children abroad. He fears a situation where the northern economies retain industry and the southern ones are left with agriculture and tourism.

Germany's experience with integrating foreign workers, particularly a large Turkish minority, has proved difficult. Today, many government officials and business leaders are eager to be hospitable and acknowledging that they have not always been so.

The demographics are telling: last year, the German population grew for the first time since 2002, thanks to a net immigration of 240,000 people, nearly double the 128,000 net gain in 2010. Poland and Romania sent the most, but statistics showed thousands more coming from the crisis-stricken southern nations.

For Spain, the migration relieves pressure on the overstretched welfare state. In Baden-Wurttemberg, the unemployment rate is just 4 percent. For the most part, engineers are being offered twice the salaries they could make at home, said a Spanish engineer, though taxes are higher in Germany.

The southern migrants generally find Germany more attractive than South America and Australia because it is so close to home. Some say they expect to make lives here, but many hope to return home soon.

For now, the migration benefits both countries. The conflict will begin when Spain eventually recovers and wants its engineers back.

Peter Fenkl, president of the executive board of Ziehl-Abegg, estimated that it costs as much as $50,000 more to train and integrate a foreign worker than it does a German. But his company has little choice - it needs enough highly trained workers to fill orders.

Many Spaniards say working in Germany takes getting used to, with Germans far more direct than Spaniards and much quieter. No one makes personal calls during business hours. But the workday is much shorter.

They were surprised that they were expected to greet co-workers each morning with handshakes and to call them "Herr" and "Frau" (Mr. and Ms.). Hallway conversations over work issues were cut off by Germans suggesting it would be more appropriate to schedule a formal meeting.

The German fondness for order, often joked about, is true, said Carlos Baixeras, 30, an engineer near Frankfurt. "There are rules for everything," he said. "There's a trash police."

David Jimenez, 23, who works near Stuttgart, said his first few weeks were a nightmare. He still does not know what the different products are when he goes shopping.

"I can't get a cold," he said. "If I get a cold I don't know what I'm going to do."

The New York Times