Refugees won’t plug German labor gap: Few refugees from Syria and other war zones have vocational training or a degree.

Ugh, guy below you is spouting the "economic migrants" crap again. It's an interesting article that you linked, but I think it more so focuses on migration to Germany in general merely as opposed to employment of refugees alone, but it's a start.

And I've got to agree with you on the climate in this subreddit – it's horribly toxic and xenophobic and I wish it could just go back to being the way it was before the crisis, though I do think that there's an issue with the low level of educational attainment among Syrian refugees. I think that a lot of the people have too much of a knee-jerk reaction to it, though; consider the fact that those who were able to come here were able to afford it, indicating that they've already been somewhat successful in Syria, that migrants tend to be more entrepreneurial, and that they're likely to be more motivated to work or learn (especially after some have spent years waiting for the war to end waiting in refugee camps). It's a self-selected group who have come, and it's undoubtedly quite a good one.

The thing about refugees is that we're not supposed to pick them based on their economic benefit that they would confer or their level of education – the purpose of taking them in is to save them from war and persecution, and it doesn't really make sense to argue about their economic value or education – it's not a matter of whether to take them in, but how to help them find their place in society; while many will wish to return after the war is over, most will probably stay – whether because they have to or because they wish to. It's the responsibility of the states that take them in to educate them and make them useful, and getting them to work is undoubtedly the best way to integrate them. The continent is short of both skilled and unskilled labor; it's a bit misleading to construe it as a shortage of just one, as the article I linked here does, but ensuring that a high standard of education is provided to refugees is imperative to this.

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