Driven by an ageing population and the mass retirement of the ‘baby boomer’ generation, Germany is grappling with a chronic and structural skilled labour shortage. As Europe’s largest economy, the country is facing critical workforce gaps across multiple sectors, including healthcare, engineering, IT, and energy.
Facing a shortage this dire, the country is trying to alleviate the problem by recruiting talent from outside its borders, with a particular focus on India.
The initiative began in 2021 after Henrik von Ungern-Sternberg was contacted by Magic Billion, an Indian employment agency offering candidates for vocational training programs.
The gist of the email was: “We have lots of young, motivated people looking for vocational training, and we’re wondering if you’re interested.”
Handrik von Ungern-Sternberg was then working at a firm in southwest Germany that represented skilled workers from bricklayers to carpenters to butchers.
While speaking to the BBC, Handrik von Ungern-Sternberg said that we had a lot of desperate employers who couldn’t find anyone to work for them. “So we decided to give it a chance.”
Recognising a nationwide decline in traditional German trades, he contacted the head of the local butchers’ guild. The sector’s contraction has been stark: while Germany boasted 19,000 small, family-run butcher shops in 2002, fewer than 11,000 remained by 2021.
According to Joachim Lederer, recruiting young people has become incredibly difficult because the butchery trade requires “hard work.” He noted that younger generations are pursuing different career paths, leading to a severe shortage of skilled labour in the sector.
Over the years, von Ungern-Sternberg established his own employment agency, India Works, which has successfully brought 200 young Indians to work in German butcher shops. This movement of workers is born of necessity rather than preference, as Germany grapples with a severe demographic crisis.
Conversely, India boasts a massive labour surplus. ‘India is a country with 600 million people below the age of 25,’ Aditi Banerjee of Magic Billion told the BBC, highlighting the nation’s vast workforce potential.
According to a 2024 study by Bertelsmann Foundation think tank, the economy needs to attract 288,000 foreign workers annually or its workforce could decrease by 10 per cent by 2040.
In 2026, India Works expects to bring 775 young Indians to Germany for apprenticeships. This cohort will include road builders, mechanics, stonemasons, and bakers, among other trades. This expansion follows Berlin’s 2024 announcement that it would increase the annual skilled worker visa quota for Indian nationals from 20,000 to 90,000.
According to a January 2026 study by the business daily Handelsblatt, Indian expatriates in Germany out-earned their local counterparts by roughly 29% in 2024. With a median gross monthly income of €5,393 (Rs 5,68,900) versus €4,177 (Rs 4,34,000) for German workers, these lucrative prospects—combined with domestic job scarcity—are drawing a wave of Indian talent to Europe.
