According to the German Federal Statistical Office, the number of foreigners in Germany is currently the highest since the reunification of the country in October 1990, wrote the German weekly Der Spiegel.
People of non-German origin now account for more than one-eighth of the country’s more than 83 million inhabitants.
As of Sep. 30, 2019, 11.14 million people of non-German origin lived in Germany, which is 2 percent more than at the end of 2018, which was at 10.92 million.
At the end of 2011, only 6.93 million foreigners lived in Germany while in 1990, after the German reunification, it was only 5.34 million foreigners.
The sharp increase in the number of foreigners in Germany can be attributed mainly to the large migration wave between 2012 and 2019, which culminated five years ago. During that period, Germany also accepted more than two million asylum seekers.
According to the data of the Federal Statistical Office from last year, inhabitants without German citizenship were mainly Turks, Poles, and Syrians.
In 2018, for example, 27.5 percent of Munich residents were foreigners while in Frankfurt, people of non-German origin accounted for almost a third of the city’s population.
The age of foreign nationals is also on average lower than that of native Germans. The average German is 45 years old, while the average age of foreigners is 38.
The increase in foreigners in Germany also has led to a higher number of children born in Germany to non-German mothers. According to official statistics, a total of 792,000 children were born in Germany in 2016, 7 percent more than a year earlier. Such an increase is directly attributed to the growth in the number of foreigners.
Germany has struggled with issues over integration regarding the influx of migrants. The German government recently released figures highlighting just how much Germany has spent on migrants, including a record €23 billion in 2018, including rent subsidies, jobless payments and other benefits.
Cities have also been on the hook for billions, with German newspaper Junge Freiheit reporting that Hamburg has spent €5.35 billion on migrants between 2015 and 2019.
A significant study released by German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) less than a year ago found that 65 percent of the 7,500 migrants they interviewed were still out of work.
