Dr. Yvonne Giesing

ifo researcher Panu Poutvaara has spoken out in favor of speeding up asylum procedures in Germany. “The traffic light coalition’s aim in this regard is to be welcomed,” he said in Munich on Wednesday. “Anyone who qualifies for asylum should receive a decision as quickly as possible. Equally, unfounded asylum applications should also be rejected very quickly. That could save money.”

Emigration from Poland can have a strong impact on elections, according to a new study in the journal EconPol Forum. Higher emigration causes a significant increase in right-wing votes: a 1 percent increase in the number of emigrants increases the share of right-wing votes by 0.25 percent. The opposite is true for the left-wing parties: a 1 percent increase in the number of emigrants causes a 0.57 percent decline in left-wing parties’ share of the vote. “This matters for the parliamentary election in Poland on October 15, since voting by mail from abroad has been abolished by the government,” says ifo migration researcher Yvonne Giesing.

The Covid-19 pandemic has far-reaching implications for migration. Compared to the same period last year, the number of first-time asylum applications in Germany decreased by 35.1 percent in March 2020 and by 51.3 percent in April 2020. “This decline is attributable to restrictions imposed on entry to the country and the closure of embassies and visa offices,” says ifo researcher Yvonne Giesing in an article for ifo Schnelldienst. Moreover, she adds, the pandemic negated the effect of the Immigration of Skilled Workers Act, which came into force in March 2020.

Refugees’ prospects on the German labor market are improved to a significant extent if they receive support when they first approach potential employers. This was the finding of a research project conducted by the ifo Institute, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (LMU), MEDAM, and the University of Glasgow. Refugees without asylum status and refugees with below-average qualifications see a particular benefit.