Germany to exert ‘extra effort’ in attracting more Indian talent, students
NEW DELHI, INDIA — German Ambassador to India and Bhutan Philipp Ackermann said that they are looking to make “extra effort” in attracting more skilled workers and students from India.
Following the signing of a bilateral migration and mobility agreement between both countries last week, Ackermann acknowledged that Germany currently takes “too much time”— about four or five months— to process student visa applications due to both the sheer number of applications and the need to weed out fraudulent applications.
He added that authorities are focused on cutting the time needed.
Minister of External Affairs of India S Jaishankar and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany Annalena Baerbock signed the migration and mobility agreement after a meeting in New Delhi on December 5.
The pact will facilitate Indian and German citizens to study, conduct research and work in both countries.
Ackermann noted that there will always be a need for skilled workers in Germany “across the board, be it cooks or nurses or IT experts.”
“What we’ll see in the coming years is an outreach towards India in order to get Indians and their families coming to Germany and joining our workforce, and we need them.”
He added, “One of the inflation drivers in Germany is the lack of skilled workers and [labor], and therefore we will make an extra effort. Our agreement on mobility basically contains this idea that we will be opening up for legal migration to [Indian] citizens. We have a good diaspora of Indians in Germany, who have a very good reputation.”
As of December 2021, Germany was home to 160,000 Indian nationals and 43,000 Indian-origin people. Germany also has more than 34,000 Indian students.
