The AfD wants less immigration, but Saxony-Anhalt’s economy needs more workers

Saxony-Anhalt is aging and shrinking, yet the Alternative for Germany wants to reduce immigration. That tension is especially significant for the state’s labor market and economic future.

The Leuna chemical park is one of Saxony-Anhalt’s most important economic centers. Around 15,000 people work there across more than 100 companies. The AfD has made no secret of whom it wants in the state, and especially whom it does not want.

The party’s election program for the Saxony-Anhalt state election calls for the country to “do without culturally foreign skilled workers.” The position may not come as a surprise, but a current study by the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research Halle shows how substantial the state’s need for foreign workers already is.

That creates a direct conflict between the AfD’s restrictive migration policy and the labor needs of a state whose demographic decline is already shaping its economic prospects.

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Do without culturally foreign skilled workers.