Jobless Germans Pour Into Austria

Sitting behind the reception desk of the Zur Tenne hotel in the prosperous Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel, Georg Dewas does not quite fit the image of a "guest worker".

For the past two years Mr Dewas has worked as front-office manager here, greeting guests attracted by Kitzbühel's stunning Alpine scenery.

However, he is not Austrian but German - one of a growing number of Germans who, unable to find work at home, have left to find employment in neighbouring Austria or Switzerland, often as waiters, bar staff, or even cleaners.

It was, of course, the Germans who invented the word Gastarbeiter, or "guest worker", to describe the 2 million-plus Turks who came to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s to take on low-paid jobs that the Germans were reluctant to do.

Now, in a striking reversal of fortune, thousands of young Germans are taking Gastarbeiter-style positions in ski resorts such as Kitzbühel, rather than staying on the dole at home.

"Germans, especially from east Germany, simply can't find jobs," Mr Dewas told the Guardian. "It's impossible. In Austria it's much easier to find a job these days, though it's also easier to be fired."

He added: "There is a certain amount of schadenfreude among my Austrian colleagues. For years the German economy was the envy of the world. Now [it] is broke."

The number of Germans working in Austria has doubled since 2000, to 45,618, and Germans are poised to overtake Turks as the biggest group of migrant workers.

Although Mr Dewas is from Baden-Württemburg in west Germany, the overwhelming majority of Germans coming to Austria are from the east, where unemployment can be 25%. Nationally, just under 5 million Germans are on the dole, 12% of the workforce. In Austria it is 5%.

As well as Mr Dewas, two other Germans work in the Tenne, a four-star hotel within easy reach of Munich, 62 miles (100km) away across the Tyrolean mountains and the German border.

As well as working in hotels, Germans also work as ski instructors and as dishwashers. "If you go to the supermarket in Kitzbühel these days you hear German rather than Tyrol accents at the check-out," Mr Dewas said.

The job situation in Germany is so dire that the Bun desagentur für Arbeit, Germany's employment agency, has started a "Europa-service", aimed at finding young Germans jobs abroad. The agency is putting unemployed Germans in contact with Austrian firms, much as German companies did 40 years ago when they set up recruitment fairs in Turkey to fill Germany's vast labour shortage.

"Let's face it, there is no hope of finding work here," said Nadine Schneider, a spokeswoman for the Europa-service in the eastern town of Magdeburg, where unemployment runs at 26%. "People go and work in Austria for the season, normally for about seven months. The hope is that when they get back things will be better."

The German labour exodus has been partly fuelled by reforms to their country's traditionally generous welfare system that came into effect at the beginning of the year. Under the changes the long-term unemployed have found their benefits cut.

In Austria more flexible labour laws mean that getting a job if you are German is relatively simple. Since last summer Germans have also been able to work legally in non-EU Switzerland. Others have gone to the Netherlands or the UK.

"Germans are seen as being mobile, flexible and ready to work," Ernst Reider, the head of the five-star Astoria hotel, in the neighbouring resort of Seefeld, near Innsbruck, told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.

Meanwhile, the ski season in Kitzbühel is now over, and most German guest workers have gone home. Some will come back in a few weeks time for the summer season. Others hope their new skills will help them find work at home.

"This really is a lovely place to work," Mr Dewas said. "We are surrounded by 2,000-metre high mountains. And a lot of Germans drive here for the weekend."

Would he like to work back in Germany in the future? "I wouldn't mind," he said.