Germany's Angela Merkel opened the borders to a flood of Muslim migrants while assuring everyone that they would settle down, integrate and get jobs that would enable them to support all the Germans who took vacations in Spain instead of having children to support them in their old age.
But sadly the only skills that the Muslim migrants seem to possess are
1. Robbing tourists
2. Sexually assaulting women
3. Jihad
Sadly few German companies want to hire anyone to rob tourists, assault women or blow things up. So they're unemployed. Which means they're on the dole. Which means that any and all future acts of Muslim terror will be blamed on
1. Racism in the job market
2. Failure to integrate
3. The lack of corporate positions for robber rapist terrorists
A year ago, as Germany opened its borders to a surge of migrants and refugees, Chancellor Angela Merkel said,"Wir schaffen das" — "We can do it." More than a million asylum seekers arrived in Germany last year, and they're eligible to start working after three months.
Many expected that the influx of new arrivals would help Germany's economy, already the strongest in Europe. Big players in German business were enthusiastic. Dieter Zetsche, the CEO of Daimler, the big car maker, predicted a new "economic miracle." Frank Appel, the CEO of Deutsche Post, the huge courier company, praised the additional value for the labor market that the refugees would bring.
Germany, like most every country in Europe, has an aging workforce and a low birthrate and needs more young workers in the years to come.
But the miracle hasn't happened. The easy entrance to the German labor market was overestimated, especially for Syrian refugees, says Wido Geis of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research.
By "overestimated", they mean blatantly lied about.
One out of three German companies says it plans to hire refugees this year or next. But only 7 percent of all German firms have actually done so in the last 24 months, according to the Institute for Economic Studies in Munich, which polled managers earlier this year.
And they'll keep on saying that.
And a grand total of 54 refugees have managed to find employment with the country's biggest 30 companies, according to a survey in June by the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Fifty of them are employed by Deutsche Post.
By "employed", they most likely mean hawking newspapers on streetcorners. And who doesn't want to buy papers from scowling men muttering about Allah.
Germany's biggest economic players have not done enough, says economy minister Sigmar Gabriel. In July, he wrote to 30 Frankfurt stock exchange companies, urging them to hire more refugees.
"Without you," he wrote, "the bridge is not yet complete."
Maybe Sigmar can hire more refugees. Perhaps as babysitters or personal bodyguards.