German Job Opportunities for Immigrants Rate High in Survey - SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Germany's efforts to improve immigration policies have so far received a mixed reception, however. More than half of the German communities surveyed by a study released Tuesday by the country's migration and integration commissioner said that they were working on initiatives including language courses and continuing education classes to help integrate immigrants into the labor market. But the SVR's 2012 evaluation, also released Tuesday, criticizes the lack of coordination between national, regional and local integration efforts.
In April the German parliament, the Bundestag, approved a bill to implement an "EU Blue Card" directive designed to ease work requirements so that skilled non-EU workers could stay long term, more than three years after the EU approved the concept. Even though some countries have yet to put the directive in place, the timing is "embarrassing," says Sievert from the Institute for Population and Development. "The German government should have done that a year ago.""
