A 2025 microcensus from the Federal Statistical Office finds 27% of employees in Germany have an immigrant background, with above-average shares in cooking, food production, construction trades, transport, hospitality and care.
27% of Germany’s workforce had an immigrant background in 2025, using the Federal Statistical Office definition (they or their parents immigrated after 1950).
Several occupations with labour shortages show high shares of workers with foreign roots: cooks (56%), professional drivers (41%), hotel service (40%), and nursing and elderly care (33%).
Majority-foreign-root workforces appear in food production (55%), floor laying (54%), scaffolding (51%) and meat processing (51%).
Official figures released via dpa and published by the Federal Statistical Office show that in 2025 more than one in four employees in Germany — 27% — had an immigrant background. The office defines "immigrant background" as a person who or whose parents immigrated to Germany after 1950.
The microcensus data highlights clear concentration patterns by occupation. In several trades and sectors that face shortages of skilled workers, people with immigrant roots are represented well above the national average.
Concrete sector and occupation shares
By contrast, among sectors where labour is scarce, emergency services had the lowest share of employees with an immigrant background at 7%.
Why this matters for the labour market
The data links immigrant-origin workers to many parts of the economy that depend on steady staffing: hospitality, health care and construction are specifically called out. High shares in occupations like cooking, food production and transport indicate that these workers are an established element of the staffing base in jobs that can be hard to fill.
The microcensus is a regular sample survey in which roughly 1% of the German population is surveyed annually. The Federal Statistical Office provided the 2025 results that dpa reported.
The 2025 microcensus places immigrant-background workers at the centre of several key German industries. The numbers map where those workers are concentrated and where shortages intersect with high dependence on employees who have immigrated themselves or whose parents did since 1950.
More than half of cooks in Germany had an immigration background in 2025, as well as about a third of all nurses and dental assistants.
A shrinking population, retiring baby boomers and falling immigration are combining to deepen Germany's labour crisis. Eastern states in particular face big gaps, just as far-right politics push potential workers away.
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