German hospitals and other employers fear staff shortages if many Syrian refugees return home after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, a concern supported by a study released on Friday.
Health care providers have warned that more than 5,000 Syrian doctors work in German medical facilities, often in rural areas, and it will be difficult to replace them and other staff.
Europe’s largest economy has hosted nearly one million refugees from war-torn Syria, peaking in 2015 under former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Although initially welcomed warmly, the mass arrivals caused a backlash that led to 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 insecurity there.
Many employers fear this could worsen Germany’s rapidly growing labor shortage, a concern supported by a study from the Institute for Employment Research released on Friday.
Yulia Kosyakova, a researcher at the institute, said the massive returns “could have a noticeable regional and sector-specific impact – especially in sectors, areas of activity and sectors that already suffer from labor shortages. “
It said 287,000 Syrian citizens are employed in Germany, with many who arrived in recent years still enrolled in language and so-called integration courses.
It said Syrian men mostly work in transportation and logistics, manufacturing, food and hospitality, health and construction, while women are more strongly represented in social and cultural services.
The news magazine Der Spiegel, citing figures from the German Medical Association, reported that 5,758 Syrian medical doctors work in Germany.
“We can understand that many of them want to return to their homeland and that they are urgently needed there,” Gerald Gass, president of the German Hospital Association, told the magazine.
But he warned that they play an important role, especially in smaller towns, and warned: “If they leave Germany in large numbers, the impact will undoubtedly be felt at staffing levels.”
Isabelle Halletz, director of the Nursing Employers Association, told news channel NTV that many Syrians are also employed as care workers, adding that their departure would be “a serious blow to care for the elderly.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
