Germany's new immigration law takes effect on Sunday, amid hopes it will attract foreign workers to bolster industries that have been left short of staff over recent years. 

Skilled workers will be incentivized to move to Germany from around the world, especially if they are trained in one of the sectors the country is currently lacking in - including nursing, IT, and engineering. There is a special focus on those with vocational skills - so if someone didn't go to university, they can now access a whole range of work related to their qualifications, not just the specific job they may have had when they moved to Germany. 

Despite an influx of refugees since 2015, many of these gaps have not been plugged. In part this is due to some of the difficulties associated with working in Germany as a foreign national. 

Sergio Martinez, a nurse from Mexico who moved to Germany in 2018, told CGTN the language barrier was one of the first hurdles he faced: "The first obstacle was the language, that's vital for passing on accurate information from patients to doctors." So he undertook an intensive language course. 

Although workers will be expected to learn some German, one big obstacle has been eradicated. Previously, German companies would have to give German or EU candidates priority over non-EU citizens, no matter their qualifications. 

The new law also adds a "job seekers" category, which allows migrants to apply for a six-month visa without a contract waiting for them in Germany. 

However, some have criticized what interior minister Horst Seehofer called a "very modern law," as it expects job seekers to have at least a beginner's grasp of the German language before they arrive.

According to Info Migrants, this is "a big investment for a lot of people who don't know whether a work contract is waiting for them at the end of the process."

Holger Kolb, a director at the Expert Council of German Foundations of Integration & Migration who helped with preparatory work on the law, added that institutional issues with the visa process also need to be addressed for this new edict to have a real effect. 

"Laws can be open for skilled migrants," he told CGTN Europe, "but if it's impossible for those skilled migrants to get appointments at the embassies, this new law will be useless. So this will be one major improvement to be made in the future: that the bottlenecks at the consulates be broadened."

Herbert Brücker of the Institute for Employment Research added that the number of workers he expects the law change to attract - and who are able to pass the remaining hurdles - is still much lower than what the German economy needs. 

"We expect perhaps an additional 25,000 individuals [to] move into Germany... but we need net immigration of about 400,000," he said. "It's basically a minor change." 

Brücker said businesses are similarly skeptical, as "they do not expect that it will be much easier for them now to hire individuals." 

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