Germany plans to cut its annual work permit quota for six Western Balkan countries from 50,000 to 25,000 starting in January 2027, despite warnings from its own employment agency that the move could worsen labour shortages and make recruitment harder for German companies.
BERLIN, Oct. 17 (BalkanView) — Germany’s Federal Employment Agency has urged the government to abandon plans to halve the number of workers admitted annually from the Western Balkans, warning that the restrictions could deepen the country’s shortage of skilled labour.
The proposed reduction would affect citizens of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, who currently benefit from simplified access to Germany’s labour market under the Western Balkans Regulation.
The government intends to reduce the annual quota from 50,000 to 25,000 starting in January 2027.
Vanessa Ahuja, a member of the Federal Employment Agency’s executive board, warned that the reduction would undermine a programme that has helped German companies recruit workers.
“A halved quota will weaken a successful immigration model, worsen the skilled labour shortage, and make it more difficult for companies to search for new workers,” Ahuja said in a statement on Friday, according to German news agency dpa.
More than 500,000 Balkan citizens employed in Germany
The Federal Employment Agency said well over half a million people from the six Western Balkan countries currently work in Germany in jobs subject to social security contributions.
According to the agency, 53% of workers arriving from the region are employed in skilled positions or have higher qualifications.
Around half work in occupations facing labour shortages, highlighting the importance of Western Balkan workers to German employers.
The agency warned that restricting recruitment could undermine government investment initiatives, including plans to accelerate housing construction.
Germany’s Bauturbo programme aims to simplify planning regulations and shorten approval procedures for residential construction until 2030.
However, Ahuja said such initiatives would depend on companies being able to recruit sufficient workers.
Demand already exceeds available permits
Introduced in 2016, the Western Balkans Regulation allows citizens of the six countries to obtain German work visas under simplified conditions.
The programme covers different types of employment, including jobs that do not require formal professional qualifications.
The Federal Employment Agency said the current quota of 50,000 was already insufficient to meet demand in 2025.
It expects the available places to be exhausted before the end of 2026.
Reducing the quota by half would therefore further limit access to an employment route that is already oversubscribed.
The proposed change concerns annual admissions under the programme and does not mean that 25,000 Western Balkan workers currently employed in Germany would lose their jobs.
What the changes mean for the Western Balkans
Germany is an important employment destination for citizens of the six Western Balkan countries.
The proposed restrictions could make it more difficult for prospective workers to secure employment opportunities through the regulation, while creating additional recruitment challenges for German businesses.
For the Western Balkans, labour migration has both economic benefits and costs.
Workers abroad contribute to household incomes through remittances, while their departure can also intensify labour shortages in their home countries.
The German agency’s figures do not specify how many workers from each of the six countries would be affected by the planned reduction.
The debate reflects a broader tension between Germany’s efforts to regulate migration and the labour needs of its economy.
With the quota already unable to accommodate all applications, the Federal Employment Agency argues that reducing it further would weaken an established recruitment channel.