India Week

Hareetha Babu is a qualified software engineer from India who recently moved to Hamburg to be with her husband. In almost a year since she has been in this new city, she has spent countless hours studying German (she now holds a B1 level) and applying for new jobs in order to get back to work. While some employers reply that her degree is not recognised in Germany, some others state that her lack of German language skills are a no-go. It is a daunting feeling to be in a new country, simultaneously adjusting to a new life while overcoming professional challenges despite being well qualified and deserving. 

Hareetha is one of the many Indians who relocate to Hamburg to study, work or be with their partners, and face unanticipated hurdles in finding their feet in the city. As of December 2020, there are 5,628 Indians residing in Hamburg, of which 983 (228 men, 754 women) came to join a non-German family-member. Similarly, 501 Indians had a residence permit to study in Hamburg, many of whom will continue to stay back to work and live with a partner or family. 

As per data from the City of Hamburg, Indians are some of the most qualified foreign residents in the city, with more than 41% employees of Indian origin being experts or highly-skilled labourers (compared to 12% of highly skilled German employees in Hamburg). The city of Hamburg is therefore keen on promoting Hamburg as an attractive destination for Indian professionals and ensuring a smooth integration for them and their families is key to this. 

While every person in the city has to reach out to their local District Office or the Bezirksamt for all matters of registration and residence permits, these local centres are not enough to get support on all bureaucratic or integration aspects. That’s where the Hamburg Welcome Center (HWC) steps in gracefully. As the name suggests, the HWC is designated to be the first-point of contact for foreigners in Hamburg. 

The problem? Not many people know about the varied and multi-layered services they offer to newcomers! 

Starting in January 2021, the City of Hamburg has expanded the scope of services offered by the Hamburg Welcome Center in order to ease the integration of newcomers. The Center now actively offers many more services that would help foreigners integrate into the German system better. According to the official statement by the HWC, “assisting and counselling qualified foreign workers and management personnel as well as their family members is a high priority at the Hamburg Welcome Center. In particular the HWC service is designed for foreign self-employed persons, researchers, freelancers and employees whose minimum income complies with section 2, paragraph 18b, sentence 2 of the Residence Act (currently 44,304 EUR).” 

The Hamburg Welcome Center is thus focused on three categories of residents - potential skilled workers who are looking for work opportunities, skilled workers with an employment or training contract and existing, registered employers, employees and their families. The centre offers its help through a variety of events, one-on-one consultations and direct coordination with the different arms of Hamburg city administration. 

As a majority of Indian-origin employees in Hamburg fall under the highly-skilled category with an average to high income, the City of Hamburg is interested in creating a smoother integration process for such employees and their families. In fact, the Hamburg Welcome Center even offers extensive advisory services to Indian employees and their spouses who wish to integrate into the German market. These range from the legal aspects of immigration, registration and the tax system, language courses and even information of job search to name just a few. 

Going back to Hareetha’s case, the Hamburg Welcome Center was a welcome help to her. “I was very happy with how approachable they were. The moment I explained that I was looking for work in the city, they noted down my educational background, interests and work experience. Within a few days they connected me with a few prospective employers along with additional information on how to get my degrees recognised for the German system. I have already applied to the suggested jobs and am hoping to hear back something positive.” 

In addition to these tasks, the Welcome Center also guides foreign residents on labour law issues, socio-pedagogical support like finding the right Kita (kindergarden), health and insurance advice, and housing matters. 

While these are great strides by the city authorities to smoothen out the wrinkles in the system for foreign nationals, there remain some issues to fix. One of the criticisms levied against the current policy is that the Welcome Center is biased towards high income residents with its minimum income benchmark of 44,304 euros. Additionally, it is hard to get appointments at the Welcome Center - exacerbated even more due to the pandemic restrictions. And lastly, a lack of awareness among the target group about their offerings. Yet with many steps being taken to gain more visibility and capacity to reach out to all foreign residents, the Hamburg Welcome Center is a truly welcome change to the 

Types of services offered by the HWC