Fewer Eastern European workers than expected move to Germany

Far fewer workers from eastern Europe than expected have moved to Germany since its labour market was opened to former communist states almost a year ago, the head of Germany's labour office said on Saturday. Europe's biggest economy was braced for a sharp rise in the number of migrants when it lifted labour market restrictions last year, but the need to learn German, and Germany's later opening to migrants than other EU states, have dampened foreign workers' desire to move here.
"As a result of the freedom of movement for workers, some 63,000 people from these countries have come to Germany to work," Frank-Juergen Weise, head of Germany's Labour Office, told the Rheinische Post newspaper. A year ago, his office expected some 140,000 migrant workers annually.
Weise said Britain and Ireland had opened their labour markets earlier than Germany, so many workers had already established themselves there. In addition, many found it easier to learn English than German. After a seven-year exemption to EU rules on the free movement of workers from ex-communist states that joined the bloc in 2004, Germany opened its labour market to countries including Poland, Hungary and Baltic states in May last year.
It looked an attractive destination as its unemployment rate keeps hitting record lows and is way below the rates of most other EU nations. It has seen an influx of workers from crisis-hit southern euro zone states in recent months. Some 67 percent of those who have migrated from eastern Europe are from Poland, about 13 percent from Hungary and 7 percent from the Czech Republic, Weise said. Sectors popular among migrant workers include construction and manufacturing, he added.