Press release No. 391 of 15 September 2022
WIESBADEN – The number of professional qualifications obtained abroad and recognised in Germany rose also in 2021. The increase was again smaller, however, than in the years 2016 to 2019. In the whole of Germany, 46,900 professional qualifications acquired in a foreign country were recognised in 2021 as fully or partially equivalent to the relevant qualifications obtained in Germany. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that the number of recognitions was up by 5% on 2020 (44,800), when the figure had increased also by 5% on the previous year. The two-digit growth rates of the years 2016 to 2019 were not reached again. The number of new applications for the recognition of foreign professional qualifications also rose by 5% year on year in 2021 to 43,900 (2020: 42,000) after having fallen in 2020 compared with 2019. It is not possible to draw any conclusions from the data as to whether these results were influenced by the Skilled Immigration Act effective as of March 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic.
