Ganna Nikolska comes back dejected from the stand of an insurer ready to hire Ukrainian refugees in Berlin.
“I don’t speak German,” she says in halting English.
The 42-year-old trained doctor fled Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine in March “with her backpack and her daughter,” her sister Olena Nikitoshkina, 36, who speaks fluent German, told reporters.
Photo: AFP
Nikolska would like to stay in Germany, but is having trouble finding work in her field “because her degree would need to be recognized and she’d need to speak German, but that takes a long time,” Nikitoshkina said.
About 1,000 Ukrainian new arrivals showed up this week at the stands of companies gathered at the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry for a job fair.
Three months after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which touched off a mass exodus of more than 6 million people, Germany has taken in more Ukrainians than any other nation apart from the bordering countries, UN data showed.
German authorities estimate that more than 700,000 people have arrived from Ukraine since Feb. 24, without knowing how many have continued on to third countries.
In Berlin, about 44,000 Ukrainians have applied for a permanent residence permit. Following the hectic first few weeks getting settled, the refugees — the vast majority of them women — now aim to integrate and earn a living.
A wide range of about 60 employers, including hotels, private clinics and construction companies, took part in the job fair, said Yvonne Meyer, who counsels refugees for the chamber of commerce.
As Europe’s biggest economy with its aging population and low unemployment faces a talent shortage across many sectors, Ukrainian newcomers are seen as an attractive option in industry, retail jobs and healthcare.
The German Institute for Employment Researchreported that there are 1.69 million jobs unfilled in the country — a new record.
“We are still searching for personnel so it’s a very good opportunity for us,” a recruiter from Berlin’s municipal street cleaning service said at the fair.
Some companies, including the Grill Royal group of upscale restaurants and Policum health clinics, have started offering new staff German courses.
However, none of the jobs that interest Yuliia Bokk provide this possibility.
“It’s not enough that I speak English. I ask everybody and they all say to me: ‘Learn basic German and come back,’” said the 24-year-old woman, who had a good job in retail back in Kyiv.
Bokk nevertheless considers herself lucky to be in Germany.
Since Wednesday, Ukrainian refugees have been able to benefit from state assistance of up to 449 euros (US$481) per month and are registered with the social security service.
She has also started a free “integration course” offering a six-month introduction to the German language and culture.
About 80,000 Ukrainians have already been enrolled, the German Office for Migration and Refugees said.
“The courses are very in demand and because a lot of refugees arrived in Germany in 2015 from Syria or Afghanistan, the structures were already in place,” said Martin Eckermann, a consultant at the migration office.
In 2015, Germany left its borders open to more than 1 million people fleeing war and misery so the number of asylum seekers working in Germany has increased more than sixfold since then.
Daria Tatarenko, a 23-year-old with a degree in management and energy sector economics, applied for a job at a bakery “because you don’t need to speak German.”
It is a temporary solution for the young woman who fled Kyiv in March.
“I feel gratitude for the German people because they helped us a lot, but I want to go home when the war is over. Because it is my home, it is my country,” she said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion