Recent immigrants to Germany differ significantly from their earlier counterparts: newer arrivals tend to be more highly educated, and they increasingly come from Eastern European countries rather than Germany's traditional sending countries like Turkey and former Soviet states. These new immigrants have entered the German labor market with varying degrees of success.

This report analyzes the labor market integration of newcomers to Germany, based on German Microcensus data.

During the 2000s, new immigrants had lower average employment rates at arrival than native workers. Most immigrants had better chances of finding work the longer they stayed in Germany—although they never entirely caught up with natives. Immigrants’ employment rates largely depended on where they came from: citizens from European Union-15 countries consistently had the highest employment rates (almost as high as those of native workers), followed by Eastern Europeans. Meanwhile, immigrants from Turkey and the former Commonwealth of Independent States had the lowest rates of employment. However, these groups also showed the largest improvements over time.