Germany was the first country in the world to experience a surplus of deaths. Every year since 1972, fewer people were born there than died. Before 1990, this also started happening in Hungary (1982) and the Czech Republic (1986).
By the middle of the current century, however, all countries in Europe, with the exception of Norway and Sweden, are expected to see natural population growth turn negative. Populous countries such as Brazil and China are also projected to experience this change before 2050.
Migration also plays a major role in the equation and can prop up population growth if a country is able to attract (and willing to admit) enough migrants. Germany, despite its long history of net negative births, benefits from an immigration surplus, meaning that more people immigrate to the country than emigrate in most years, with the effect that its population continues to grow slightly.
Germany wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year to tackle both a demographic imbalance and labour shortages in key sectors.
After decades of low birth rates and uneven migration, a shrinking labour force also poses a demographic time bomb for Germany's public pension system, in which fewer employees are burdened with the task of financing the pensions of a growing mass of retirees who are enjoying longer life expectancy.
"The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy," Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. "We can only get the problem of an ageing workforce under control with a modern immigration policy... We have to reach the mark of 400,000 skilled workers from abroad as quickly as possible."
The German Economic Institute estimates that the labour force will shrink by more than 300,000 people this year as there are more older workers retiring than younger ones entering the labour market. This gap is expected to widen to more than 650,000 in 2029, leaving an accumulated shortage of people of working age in 2030 of roughly 5 million.
Germany wants to attract 400,000 skilled workers from abroad each year (yahoo.com)
The End Of Natural Population Growth? | ZeroHedge
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