Researchers recorded a sharp rise in the number of educated immigrants arriving in Germany with at least an undergraduate degree from a university over the past seven years.

Of those coming to Germany, the share of people with a degree rose from 30 percent in 2005 to 44 percent by 2009, according to a report by the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg (IAB) released on Monday.

The figures show Germany’s new immigrants are on average better qualified than previous arrivals and their second or third generation offspring, wrote the IAB. They are also more likely to get a job commensurate with their education and training than those who have been in the country for longer.

Of the new immigrants, men from EU countries were best off in terms of employment prospects, said the IAB, with an employment rate similar to that of male Germans not from immigrant backgrounds.

Women moving to Germany from the EU were less likely to get employment, figures showed, and were less likely to get a job their female German counterparts.

Yet people moving to Germany from outside the EU had a much harder time securing a job, something IAB report authors Holger Seibert and Rüdiger Wapler said was due to “formal hurdles” barring access to employment for many non-EU citizens.

Also, these immigrants were more likely to make the move to Germany for family or humanitarian reasons, rather than on the basis of a concrete offer of employment.

DAPD/The Local/jlb