The German Federal Employment Agency admits that 74 per cent of new migrants to Germany have no qualifications and will likely only be able to do menial labour jobs.

The integration into the labour force of the over one million migrants who entered Germany in the last year has been one of the top priorities for the German Federal government.

New figures released by the Federal Employment Agency (BA) could put a further challenge to German lawmakers who assured the public that most migrants would be easily able to transition into highly skilled jobs that the country desperately needs filled.

The report by the agency reveals that 74 per cent of the migrants who were registered in June have no job qualifications or professional training at all, reports Die Welt.

The BA looked at 297,000 migrants in total and determined that 74 per cent had no vocational or professional training. But even more worrying was the fact that over a third of the migrants, or 36.8 per cent, had little to no secondary school education either. The agency noted that it would be incredibly difficult for any of these migrants to hold down skilled work and most would be relegated to menial labour jobs – possibly for their entire lives.

The issue presents a huge problem for Germany’s government who face a large skills shortage in many industries. The reality of the situation is that most of the demand for workers in Germany lies in these highly skilled areas rather than low skilled labour which is abundant and growing. Only four per cent of the migrants, some 12,000, have the required knowledge to enter the workforce and even then only after the required languages courses which can take months to complete.

Earlier this month a survey conducted by German paper Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung showed that migrants are having an increasingly difficult time getting jobs or training positions with major firms in Germany. According to the data gathered by the paper only 54 migrants had job placements at any of the major publicly traded companies in Germany, despite over one million migrant arrivals.

The statistics and data gathered all confirm warnings by economists who have predicted since the start of the migrant crisis that the influx of poor, sparsely educated migrants would spell disaster for the German economy. Some have gone as far as declaring the migrants a “lost generation” who are destined to either remain on welfare programmes funded by Germans, or work low skilled jobs which push down wages like the so called “one euro an hour” jobs proposed by the government.