Foreigners earn 24.6 billion euros in the East – German Economic Institute (IW)

In the five federal states of eastern Germany, the number of German workers has been declining for years, but the number of foreign workers is increasing. They support the economy, shows a new study by the German Economic Institute (IW).

East Germany does not have the best reputation when it comes to hospitality. The AfD works hard on migrants and is happy with good poll numbers – while many migrants are worried. Foreigners especially support the economy of eastern Germany, as a new IW study shows: In 2023, around 403,000 people without a German passport were working in the five federal states eastern Germany, about 173,000 more than five years earlier. They alone generated 24.6 billion euros – that corresponds to 5.8 percent of East Germany’s gross added value.

Saxony especially benefits

Foreign workers are therefore essential for the East: between 2018 and 2023, the number of German workers decreased by 116,000. Without new foreigners coming, the economy would have declined significantly – instead it has grown. Saxony especially benefits from this, with foreigners earning around 7.9 billion euros here. With a much smaller total economy, Brandenburg records 6.8 billion euros and Thuringia still records 3.9 billion euros.

The area must remain open to the world

In the last five years, people from Poland and the Czech Republic in particular have come to the East, but also from Romania and Ukraine. They worked mainly in the construction industry, but also in the transport sector and through temporary employment agencies in Germany. “Foreign workers support the economy of eastern Germany,” says study author Wido Geis-Thöne. “It is even more important that the region remains open to the world – because it is the only a way for the East to be economically successful.”

About the method: For the calculation, the authors of the study assumed that the productivity of foreigners working in the East is according to the average level of each worker in their own industries. Self-employed people and people in part-time employment are not included. Indirect and induced second and third round effects are also not taken into account: Many production processes are linked together, so that their elimination would also have an effect in other areas. If they were included, the values ​​would be even higher.