German hospitals fear labour shortages if Syrians leave

BERLIN — German hospitals and other employers fear worker shortages if many Syrian refugees return home after the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, a concern backed by a study released recently.

Health care providers have warned that more than 5,000 Syrian doctors work in German medical facilities, often in rural areas, and that they and other staff would be hard to replace.

Europe's biggest economy has taken in around one million refugees from war-ravaged Syria in an influx that peaked in 2015 under ex-chancellor Angela Merkel.

While they were initially greeted warmly, the mass arrivals sparked a backlash that fuelled the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Since the fall of Assad, conservative and AfD politicians have called for Syrians to return to their homeland despite lingering insecurity there.

Many employers fear this could worsen fast-ageing Germany's labour shortages, a concern backed by a study of the Institute for Employment Research released on Friday.

Large-scale returns "could have noticeable regional and sector-specific effects — especially in those sectors, fields of activity and regions that are already suffering from a shortage of labour," said institute researcher Yuliya Kosyakova.

It said that 287,000 Syrian nationals are employed in Germany, with many who arrived in recent years still enrolled in language and so-called integration courses.

Syrian men work mostly in transport and logistics, manufacturing, food and hospitality, health and construction, while women were more strongly represented in social and cultural services, it said.

News magazine Der Spiegel reported that 5,758 Syrian medical doctors work in Germany, citing data from the German Medical Association.

"We can understand that many of them want to return to their homeland and are urgently needed there," German Hospital Association chairman Gerald Gass told the magazine.

But he warned that they play an important role, especially in smaller towns, and warned: "If they leave Germany in large numbers, this will undoubtedly be felt in the staffing levels."

With many Syrians also employed as care workers, their departure would be a "serious blow for elderly care", Nursing Employers' Association director Isabell Halletz told news channel NTV.