The number of asylum applications in Germany has risen significantly in the past year. In addition to around one millions Ukrainians seeking protection, almost a quarter of a million people from elsewhere submitted asylum applications in Germany in 2022.
Germany is sorely lacking in affordable apartments, and refugees remain largely overrepresented among those without private housing. People who have applied for or received asylum earn on average 43% less than the average German salary.
Not everyone who fled Ukraine has the same chance of staying in a European Union country. In Germany, the interim solution for third-country nationals (TCNs) without a visa ends on August 31. Only three German states have found transitional arrangements so far. InfoMigrants looks at the legal situation and options for TCNs.
Ganna Nikolska comes back dejected from the stand of an insurer ready to hire Ukrainian refugees in Berlin.
“I don’t speak German,” she says in halting English.
The 42-year-old trained doctor fled Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine in March “with her backpack and her daughter,” her sister Olena Nikitoshkina, 36, who speaks fluent German, told reporters.
Nikolska would like to stay in Germany, but is having trouble finding work in her field “because her degree would need to be recognized and she’d need to speak German, but that takes a long time,” Nikitoshkina said.
About 1,000 Ukrainian new arrivals showed up this week at
Germany aims to begin processing the asylum claims of tens of thousands of people many of whom already have refugee status in Greece. The applications had been put on hold by German migration authorities.