Figures released by Germany’s Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden on Tuesday, June 27th, have revealed that immigration levels reached new record highs last year, indicating that nearly 2.7 million newcomers arrived on German soil.
The federal statistical agency, which cites the refugee crisis precipitated by the Russo-Ukrainian war as the primary reason for the massive influx of foreigners, notes that with 2.7 million new arrivals and 1.2 million departures, a record high net gain of around 1.5 million people was recorded, the Hamburg-based newspaper Der Spiegel reports.
“The figures, therefore, show the highest net immigration recorded to date within a reporting year since the start of the time series in 1950,” the Federal Statistical Office said, noting that last year’s net migration figure more than quadrupled compared to the figure recorded in 2021 (329,000).
Since the onset of the Russo-Ukrainian war, around 1.1 million Ukrainian refugees have moved to Germany from Ukraine, while some 130,000 people from Ukraine moved out of Germany, making for a net total of just under 1 million new arrivals from the war-torn country.
The agency’s statisticians note that the flow of Ukrainian refugees into Germany peaked in the first months of the war, from March to May 2022. Figures have been falling consistently since August 2022, the agency added.
The numbers revealed a significant increase in net immigration to Middle Eastern countries, including Syria (68,000), Afghanistan (55,000), and Turkey (49,000). “These developments have come in the context of refugee migration and rising numbers of asylum applications,” the agency says.
In contrast, net immigration from other EU member states increased slightly to 87,000, with nationals from Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria making their way to Germany most frequently, according to the figures.
Meanwhile, the number of Germans emigrating from the country also increased in 2022, climbing to 83,000 people compared to 64,000 the previous year. Most of the emigrants, who were male with an average age of 35, relocated to Switzerland (20,000), Austria (12,000), and the United States (10,000).
With respect to movement within Germany, figures indicated that more than one million people moved between the country’s sixteen federal states, with the eastern state of Brandenburg seeing the largest net influx and Berlin recording the largest net outflow.
