The German labour market faces a fundamental demographic change. The declining number of German employees since 2024 illustrates that employment growth in Germany is primarily driven by foreign workers. Thorsten Fischer, Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Management at Moventum AM, emphasises that skilled migration and the resulting increase in productivity are a relevant topic for investors.
This change is structural and long-term. While a growing number of workers are retiring due to age, significantly fewer young skilled professionals are entering the workforce. Between 2014 and 2024, the group of working-age individuals with German citizenship saw a reduction of approximately 3.9 million people. In the same period, the number of people of foreign nationality of working age increased by around 3.4 million. The economic perspective of immigration concerns fundamental questions of economic performance: securing production, consumption, and tax revenue.
Structural Transformation instead of Short-Term Bottlenecks
According to Fischer, this is not a temporary shortage of skilled labour, but a long-term demographic transformation that will sustainably influence the economic framework. It is hardly possible to maintain the current level of employment and value creation without international workers. This becomes particularly evident in so-called bottleneck professions, where filling open positions is significantly hindered due to a lack of qualified skilled workers.
- —Care and Health
- —Construction and Crafts
- —Automotive Technology and IT
- —Education and Hospitality
In these areas, the proportion of foreign employees has doubled from about seven to around 14 percent since 2014. Fischer states that labour migration is developing from an option into an economic necessity. Germany is thus in global competition for talent, as other countries are also increasingly subject to demographic ageing processes and require qualified skilled workers.
Relevance for Real Estate Investments
The successful recruitment and integration of international skilled workers is of crucial importance. Essential factors for this include the recognition of qualifications, the acquisition of language skills, as well as access to the labour market and measures for vocational training. This development will gain relevance not only for companies but also for investors in the coming years.
When workers in many sectors become the scarcest factor of production, according to Fischer, the value of companies capable of acquiring, retaining, and productively deploying talent increases. Industries that contribute to mitigating demographic pressure – for example, through education and qualification, digitalisation, automation, or productivity-enhancing technologies – benefit from this development. For investors, these long-term structural changes mean a need to adjust to demographic aspects as central investment themes in order to identify opportunities early and align portfolios accordingly.
