Although far more people die in Germany every year than are born, the country’s population continues to soar higher due to mass immigration, with 2022 setting a new record of nearly 2.7 million people arriving in the country.
Last year, with almost 1.5 million immigrants, there was more net immigration to Germany than at any time since records began in 1950, according to a press release of the Federal Statistical Office. Compared with 2021, when there were 329,000 more immigrants than emigrants, the surplus was more than four times as high.
“A total of around 2,666,000 immigrants and 1,204,000 emigrants across Germany’s borders were recorded in 2022. In the previous year, it was about 1,323,000 inflows and 994,000 outflows,” the statistics showed. The primary factor in the huge surge in immigrants was the mass exodus of Ukrainians in the first months of the war, with a total of 1.1 million Ukrainians entering Germany last year.
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Perhaps most notably, many of these migrants are younger than Germans, and it is leading to a substantial shift in the youth population. The data shows that 32.4 million German citizens, which includes those with or without a migration background, are over 59 years old. This is over one in three Germans. However, for foreign nationals, this age group amounts to only 12.4 percent of the population in this age group. Such data might explain why 38 percent of students in Germany now have a migration background, which has led to an incredible burden on the German school system.
There were large net increases from Syria, which saw 55,000 enter Germany in 2022, while 31,000 entered in 2021. Another 49,000 Turks entered Germany in 2022 compared to 19,000 in 2021.
In contrast, immigration from the European Union increased only moderately. In 2022, just under 87,000 more people moved to Germany from other EU countries than left the country. In the previous year, net immigration from the EU was +81,000. Last year, Romania (35,000 immigrants), Poland (18,000) and Bulgaria (13,000) all topped the list.
Meanwhile, the emigration of German citizens also increased last year to 83,000 from 64,000 in 2021. The main emigration destinations were Switzerland (20,000), Austria (12,000), and the United States (10,000).
