Goethe to help combat skilled labour shortage

Germany's Federal Employment Agency has announced that it wants to recruit more skilled workers from southern European crisis states like Portugal and Spain in a bid to counter Germany's labour shortage problems. The errors of the past are now making themselves felt, writes the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung: "Many workers who would be allowed to immigrate don't come because they can't speak German, which means that most jobs are off limits for them. This goes for the Spanish, Russians and Indians alike. The German government will therefore have to boost its culture policy abroad: with German schools in Moscow or Calcutta, with courses at the Goethe Institutes, with a greater emphasis on the role of the German language in the European Union. Recruiting skilled workers demands patience." 

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