Germany hires 54 of one million migrants

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Berlin - Just 54 refugees have been hired by Germany’s biggest companies despite more than one million arriving in the country last year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging big business to hire more refugees as her government makes integrating migrants a priority. A survey by newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine found the top 30 German companies had employed just 54 refugees. 50 refugees were hired by just one company the courier firm Deutsche Post. More than one million migrants arrived in Germany last year, with a third of them refugees from Syria. The German Chancellor has now invited executives from Germany’s biggest listed companies to attend a summit next month where she will urge them to hire more refugees, according to German newspaper Bild. Merkel’s government wants to get as many migrants as possible into the job market to reduce their dependence on the state and to compensate for labour shortages. There were 665,000 vaccines in the German jobs market in June. Merkel will push the companies to offer more traineeships and and positions to refugees at the summit in September. Companies have come under fire for not taking on refugees and have said most of the new arrivals lack the necessary language skills and education. Engineering giant Siemens, chemicals group Evonik, carmakers Opel and VW and utility RWE will share with Merkel the results of pilot projects with refugees, Bild said. Merkel's office declined to confirm Bild's report. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel last month urged large companies to do more for refugees, saying their efforts pale in comparison to the Mittelstand, the small and medium-size companies considered the backbone of Europe's biggest economy.(FA)

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