As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, there were 426,845 Croatian emigrants in Germany last year, which means that the number of Croatian citizens in that country almost doubled after Croatia’s accession to the EU because there were 224,971 of them registered there back in 2012, Vecernji list reports.
According to the National Statistics Office in Wiesbaden, Croatian emigrants in Germany are in 6th place when it comes to foreign immigrants after the citizens of Turkey, Poland, Syria, Romania and Italy. Last year, 26,335 Croatian citizens immigrated from Croatia to Germany.
In the pandemic dominated year, Germany had the lowest influx of foreigners, but the question is how comforting it is that fewer Croatian citizens emigrated last year, especially compared to the worst years of exodus in 2018, 2017, and 2016 when, according to the precise German statistics, more than 50,000 Croatian citizens arrived in Germany.
Political scientist and historian Tado Juric from the Croatian Catholic University predicts that due to the change in the way of working brought about by the pandemic, which will increasingly lead to more and more remote work, the emigration of Croats to Germany could stop within around five years, and some of those previous Croatian emigrants in Germany could also return.
“The West won’t give up on importing labour for some time to come as a key measure in rebuilding its population. But even that will not last forever. Under the influence of the fourth industrial revolution, which gained unprecedented acceleration with the appearance of the coronavirus crisis, a completely new form of economy was created.
Teleworking will replace many jobs in such a way that after the socialisation of workers and students, which we’re only just witnessing, many occupations will move into the field of teleworking. That means that a worker from Moldova, for example, will do from his apartment what a Croat is doing now in Stuttgart. My assessment is that in five years, due to this complete transformation of the way of working that teleworking brings, emigration from Croatia will stop, but there will also be a bigger return of former emigrants home,” said Juric.
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