Turkey-Germany migration two-way street, figures show

A worker removes parts of a power pole in the German city of Meckenheim. Anonymous job applications, similar to the practice in the United States, are needed en Germany, academic Demir says.

A recent wave of Turkish migration back from Germany is not a one-way street, as around 30,000 Turkish citizens also move to Europe’s powerhouse annually in hopes of building a life there, according to official statistics and academics.

More than 50,000 Turks return from Germany to Turkey per year, recent figures provided by the Germany-based Turkish European Foundation for Education and Scientific Studies (TAVAK) have revealed.

On the contrary, 30,171 Turks migrated to Germany in 2010, post-doc senior researcher at Hamburg University, Yaşar Aydın told the Daily News on March 15 in a phone interview, highlighting a “circular migration and mobility.” “At least two thirds of these 30,000 people who migrated to Germany are not on their first trip to here, which shows that there is a circular movement between Germany and Turkey,” he said.

New visas for families

In 2010, Germany provided “family reunification visas” to 7,456 Turkish citizens, some 2,351 people went to Germany for higher education and another 1,340 applied for refugee status, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.

TAVAK’s study, made public earlier this week, said that some 193,000 Turks living in Germany returned to Turkey between 2007 and 2011.

Aydın also said high-income groups of Turks are considering returning to Turkey, as opposed to low-income ones.

Similarly, İdris Akkuzu, an assistant professor at Istanbul’s Maltepe University, said remigration from Germany could not be considered disengagement, as a large majority of people who return are “trying their chances in Turkey,” which does not mean that they will not return to Germany.

 “The basic reason for this returning trend is a pushing effect by Germany and a pulling effect from Turkey. Modernization of cities in Turkey and a more discriminatory workers’ code in Germany are forcing young, educated Turks to move to Turkey,” Akkuzu told the Daily News.

‘Not a massive return’

Instead of calling it “a permanent return,” it is more appropriate to see it as a “trying of chances,” Akkuzu added.

“People from Turkey in Germany are a big diaspora now; the case is not a massive return.”
In particular, 30,000 academics of Turkish origin return to Turkey from Germany every year, according to the Turkish Community in Germany’s (TGD) figures, Ayşe Demir, the vice president of TGD, noted.

“A welcoming culture is still not settled in Germany. Young and educated people are seeking ways to find a job here desperately,” she said, adding that the brain drain of Turks from Germany to Turkey is on the rise.

“Germany has only recently accepted that it is an immigration [destination] country, but discrimination in employment policies remains a serious problem. Turkish students who hold the same degrees and diplomas as their German colleagues are not being accepted to those positions as easily as Germans or some other minorities are,” Demir said.