Only 13% of recent refugees in Germany have found work

It shows that of the refugees who arrived last year and in January 2016, 13 percent are in work. Many newcomers are still in the process of getting asylum applications assessed and so have limited access to the labour market, it found. When refugees started arriving in Germany in large numbers last summer, many politicians and economists feted them as a solution to a skilled labour shortage, but a survey published on Tuesday shows that only around 1 in 8 have found jobs so far.

Herbert Bruecker of the IAB Institute for Employment Research said experience showed around 50 percent of migrants tended to have found employment after living in Germany for five years, at least 60 percent were in work after 10 years and 70 percent after 15 years.

Some 1.1 million migrants have arrived in Germany, Europe's largest economy, since the start of 2015, many fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere.