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Germany launches 'Green Card' scheme


In this story:

Labor minister: 'This is no long-term solution'

Germany lacks 1.5 million skilled workers

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NUREMBURG, Germany -- Germany has launched an employment program that allows computer experts from other countries to work for its technology industries.

The idea, based on the Green Card permit operated in the United States, is designed to attract foreign technical expertise to support the country's ageing workforce and to combat the rise of xenophobia within Germany.

Germany will issue work visas valid for five years to up to 20,000 information technology experts. Applicants must have a university qualification or the promise of a salary of at least 100,000Dms ($50,000) a year.

It is the first time Germany has formally opened its doors to economic immigrants since it invited "guest workers" from Turkey and other parts of southern Europe to help rebuild its economy after World War II.

Labor minister: 'This is no long-term solution'

Bernhard Jagoda, president of the Federal Labor Office, said 5,486 people had already applied for the special permits via the office's website (www.arbeitsamt.de).

Harianto Wijaya, a 25-year-old Indonesian and a graduate from the technology university in the west German town of Aachen, was the first person to receive one of the new permits.

He received it from Germany's Labor minister Walter Riester, who said: "We have an enormous need for qualified workers."

But he added: "This is no long-term solution. The main goal, of course, is qualified Germans."

A poll published earlier this month in the newspaper Die Woche showed that 63 percent of those asked thought Germany did not need any more immigrants.

Germany lacks 1.5 million skilled workers

The start of the new visa scheme came just three days after nine non-Germans, six of them Jews, were hurt in a bomb blast at a Dusseldorf train station, an incident police said may have been racially motivated.

A group of 40 leading German scientific institutes also warned last week that racism is scaring away international experts.

In a joint statement they said: "Science needs to be international. We are very concerned that foreign scientists hesitate to take up invitations to visit our facilities because they don't feel safe in our country -- that damages us all."

Jagoda said: "Germany is not full of radicals. It is very open to the world. There are just a few lunatics. But one thing is clear -- radicalism does not help improve the jobs market."

Wijaya, who will work for the Aachen-based mobile-phone company AixCom, told Reuters: "I feel great. The work climate is good and the Germans are very nice."

He added that he had never experienced racism in Germany: "Aachen is a great city and there is no xenophobia there."

Dieter Hundt, president of the Federation of German Employers, says Germany lacks 1.5 million skilled workers and has called for Green Cards for other sectors of the economy.

Reuters contributed to this report.



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