A senior German government lawmaker has warned about high welfare dependency and low employment rates among Syrian and Afghan migrants.
Currently, only 36.7% of Syrians and 37% of Afghans are employed in jobs subject to social security contributions. “There is still considerable catching-up potential” compared to other groups, Mathias Middelberg, deputy leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, told Bild newspaper.
By contrast, the share of citizens’ allowance recipients among Poles and Romanians is “six, seven, eight percent,” roughly the same as among Germans, he noted to Welt TV. Similar levels are needed in the medium term for those “who have come to us as asylum seekers.”
Society “cannot accept that hundreds of thousands of young asylum migrants in Germany do not work for decades,” Middelberg said, urging job centres to become more proactive, especially with Syrians and Afghans.
He stressed that citizens’ allowance should remain for the “truly needy,” such as the sick or disabled, but added that cutting high dependency rates would save the state “a considerable amount of money.”
