Kenyans for the German labor market: A migration agreement raises hopes

Beads of sweat collect on Marcel Schwarz’s forehead two hours after the start of the trade fair. The advisor is standing at the stand of the Bavarian Business Education Center, with a dozen young Kenyans in front of him; Most of them in their early to mid-20s, some in jackets, reaching for brochures and Haribo packs that the Schwarz business development agency put out. And they listen intently as Schwarz explains what it takes to find work in Germany. In the hospitality industry, for example, or in nursing – two areas in which the Bavarian and German economies urgently need workers.

When asked how things were going, Schwarz took a breather. He’s been talking his head off for two hours now. “The interest is incredibly high,” he says. Schwarz flew in from Germany especially for this job fair, which the German Embassy and the German Chamber of Foreign Trade in East Africa organized in Kenya’s capital Nairobi last Friday. “What strikes me most,” says Marcel Schwarz, “is that many of the interested parties already speak German well.”

The job fair is the first major event that official Germany is holding against the backdrop of a migration agreement that the German and Kenyan governments signed in mid-September. The agreement is intended to make it easier for Kenyan skilled workers and students to immigrate to Germany, for example by simplifying visa procedures. In Germany, Kenyans are supposed to help address the shortage of skilled workers, which the government estimates at 400,000 jobs annually.

“Germany must have done something right”

Interest in Kenya, a country of 55 million people and one of the largest economies in Africa, is indeed enormous. A visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in May 2023 raised hopes for jobs in Germany. Even then it was said that Germany wanted to create new legal immigration opportunities for skilled workers. Since then, demand for German courses in Kenya has exploded; courses and exam dates at the Goethe Institute in Nairobi are sometimes fully booked the day after they go live.

 

Interest in the job fair was also huge. 3,000 people had registered, half of them had to be unloaded because the congress center did not have enough capacity. Lectures in which speakers spoke about the recognition of diplomas and integration in Germany were therefore also broadcast on Facebook and YouTube.

Some of those who were allowed to come came from far outside Nairobi. They crowd into two dozen stands where placement agencies, companies and authorities promise them a future: “Your path to Germany,” reads the posters, “exciting job opportunities,” “we are your bridge to the German healthcare industry.”

Prexy Mwende, 25, and Domitila Kambua, 26, have just listened to Marcel Schwarz from the Bavarian Economy Education Center. The two completed their nursing training last year and are now looking for work like millions of young Kenyans.

“Germany is a highly developed country that offers nurses many opportunities,” says Domitila Kambua. She believes she will find work more easily in Germany than, for example, in England, where the language barrier would be eliminated but where the rules for immigration of nurses were tightened this year. That’s why Kambua has been learning German with a private teacher for six months now: “I love my family,” she says in the new language. “Bye,” says Prexy Mwende next to her, and they burst out laughing. The two nurses also receive cultural tips from their German teachers: “Eye contact in conversation is important in Germany,” says Prexy Mwende.

Many of the young trade fair visitors are well informed about Germany. Donnell James, for example, says: “Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world. They must have done something right.” James is 23 and recently completed a business degree. Now he would like to work in the IT sector – and sees opportunities in Germany: “Germany is advanced in the technology sector and has the greatest need for skilled workers in the European Union.”

400,000 Kenyans already work in the Gulf states

The agreement with Germany is a great success for Kenya’s government. It can promise young Kenyans future opportunities that are lacking in their own country. The average age in Kenya is under 20, a million young people enter the labor market every year, but only one in ten finds formal work. Many people involuntarily make a living as micro-entrepreneurs, for example by trading clothes or hair products on the Internet. Taxi drivers in Kenya often have university degrees. The situation is similar in many African countries.

Kenya’s government is deeply unpopular. In June and July, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across the country against a political class that many consider to be incompetent, corrupt and indifferent to the population. The protests were carried out by the same generation that is now crowding into the German job fair.

 

For President William Ruto’s government, every young Kenyan who goes abroad is one less dissatisfied person in the country. Kenya also benefits when emigrants send money in the form of remittances: it will be almost five billion dollars this year. Kenya’s government is therefore promoting labor migration, for example to the rich Arab Gulf states, where more than 400,000 Kenyans already work, many under miserable conditions. Germany is a more attractive destination for many Kenyans.

Number of 250,000 jobs “clearly wrong”

Germany has so far concluded migration agreements with India, Georgia, Morocco and recently with Uzbekistan. Kenya is the first partner country in sub-Saharan Africa.

For the German government, the agreement with Kenya is a balancing act. In view of the AfD’s electoral successes, she does not want to give the impression that she wants to bring large numbers of migrant workers into the country. When the Kenyan government announced the number of 250,000 jobs that Germany had available for Kenyans after the agreement was signed in September, the German Interior Ministry denied it on X: the information was “clearly false”. The agreement does not contain any numbers or quotas as to how many skilled workers could work in Germany.

In fact, there are no signs of a wave of migration from Kenya. The Foreign Office says that around 160 visas were issued to Kenyan skilled workers in the third quarter of 2024; most for nursing staff and trainees.

The German government also emphasizes that an important part of the agreement is cooperation in the repatriation of Kenyans who are obliged to leave the country. However, Kenya is negligible as a country of origin for migrants who are staying in Germany illegally. Asylum applications from Kenyan citizens only make up 0.1 percent of all applications in Germany – so far this year there have been 234. Fewer than 100 Kenyans are in the country illegally – around 750 would have to leave the country, but have received a tolerated stay.

“Racism is my biggest concern”

In Kenya, too, the euphoria about the migration agreement is not unanimous. Many believe that the government should better improve opportunities in the country itself rather than export as many workers as possible. Fraudulent employment agencies are already appearing who promise to find young Kenyans a job in Germany in exchange for money. At the Goethe Institute in Nairobi, there are increasing reports of job seekers who have paid the equivalent of hundreds of euros, only to then hear nothing more from the alleged intermediaries.

There are also fears in Kenya that Kenyan skilled workers, students and trainees could become targets of racism in Germany. One of the country’s largest newspapers, “The Standard”, wrote: “The population in Germany is extremely unhappy about the high migration numbers in the country.” The newspaper cited tweets from German accounts that described would-be Kenyan immigrants as “scum” and the migration agreement as “biological warfare.”

At the trade fair in Nairobi, Donnell James, the business graduate who wants to work in the IT sector, said: “Racism is actually my biggest concern. On Tiktok I saw that a song was trending in Germany: ‘Foreigners out’. But there are always challenges, that doesn’t stop me.”