Refugees/Asylum: 4.5 thousand millions damage through work prohibition for refugees without permanent residence permits

Refugee policies of German ministers of the interior have damaged economy by 4.5 thousand million euros

Through the prohibition of work and training and the compulsory place of residence for the approximately 190,000 refugees who have had only temporary residence permits for many years the responsible ministers of the interior have damaged the German economy by at least 4.5 thousand million euros in the course of the past ten years. This calculation was made by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV). "Refugees must in future be allowed to look for work anywhere in Germany if more damage is to be avoided”, said the GfbV General Secretary, Tilman Zülch, on Wednesday. Their children must be allowed to begin training courses on leaving school.

"If we assume that of 190,000 persons with temporary residence permits some 50,000 are able to work, then we can assume that about 30,000 of them would have found somewhere in Germany a job at least in the low wage sector ", said Zülch. "If we then take a low average annual income of 15,000 euros and estimate an average residence in Germany of ten years on the part of a worker with a temporary residence permit, then we have a total income of 4.5 thousand million euros. The German economy could have been enriched by this amount.” He assumed that the refugees who were capable of working in most of the vacancies in the low wage sector would have faced no competition in many parts of western Germany. (This conservative calculation is based on the premise that 140,000 of the 190,000 persons with temporary residence permits are family members. The share of those able to work would have been however considerably higher.)

"If these refugees had been allowed to work we would have had a double advantage, for we would have been able to draw a double advantage, for with an average figure of 5000 euros in social contributions per head and year including tax – employees with three children or more would have had to pay no tax – in this period about 1.5 thousand million euros would have flowed into the public sector ", said Zülch. Similarly the cost to the state for the maintenance of all persons with temporary permits would have been less. Therefore the cost for the maintenance of all persons with a temporary permit would have been less. So the state could have saved three thousand million euros.

Members, supporters and people working with the GfbV have tried in innumerable cases mostly without success to bring aliens offices or ministries of the interior to grant persons holding temporary residence permits with work permits. A large number of these people – mostly members of minorities – have been persecuted in their home-countries, among them Assyro-Chaldean Christians and Mandaeans from Iraq, Bosnians, Pomaks, Roma from Kosovo, Vietnamese, Kurds, Croats and Chechnyans, South Sudanese, Darfuris, Uigurs, Congolese, Yesidi, Afghans, Bahai, Christian converts from Iran etc.