Asylum-applicants from Syria and Africa participate in a cabinet-making program in Berlin. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images Refugees won’t plug German labor gap Few refugees from Syria and other war zones have vocational training or a degree.

BERLIN — For Germany’s economy, the influx of up to 1.1 million refugees last year should be a godsend.

With Europe’s lowest birthrate and a rapidly aging population, Germany could lose its standing as one of the world’s leading economies. Refugees could fill the gap.

There’s just one problem: most lack the skills German companies need.

“Let’s not delude ourselves,” said Ludger Wößmann, director of Munich-based Ifo Center for the Economics of Education. “From everything we know so far, it seems that the majority of refugees would first need extensive training and even then it’s far from certain that it would work out.”

Even as Germany’s economy has thrived in recent years, industry has warned of a looming Fachkräftemangel, or skilled worker shortage. Without significant immigration, the working-age population will likely decrease from roughly 49 million in 2013 to somewhere between 34 and 38 million in 2060, according to a government estimate published in July.

The government’s efforts to lure highly-skilled foreigners have largely fallen short.

With most of the refugees unlikely to leave anytime soon, Germany may have no choice but to invest in training.

Faced with those pressures, finding ways to put the refugees to work quickly has become a top priority for Angela Merkel’s government.

“We have more than 1 million vacancies, we have a need for qualified personnel, and more than 50 percent of those who come to us are younger than 25,” Labor Minister Andrea Nahles said in a recent interview with German public television. “This could really work out.”

Yet some economists argue that the refugees are unlikely to have much impact in the short term.

Less than 15 percent of refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries have completed vocational training or a university degree, according to a September 2015 study by Germany’s Institute for Employment Research.

Even those with training often don’t have the skills expected in Germany. On average, an eighth-grader in pre-war Syria had a similar level to a third-grade student in Germany, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“Someone who comes from Eritrea and says he was an electrician might have repaired a radio or laid a cable there,” said Achim Dercks, deputy managing director of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, “but he might have never seen a fuse box, as we use it in Germany.”

With most of the refugees unlikely to leave anytime soon, Germany may have no choice but to invest in training.

On Wednesday, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière described the task of integrating those who have arrived so far as a “massive, long-term undertaking.”

Too old to train?

Much of the early political debate about the refugees focused on how to integrate the newcomers in order to preserve Germany’s culture and national identity.

Now, many politicians argue that finding them work is the easiest way to achieve that goal. But that may force Germany to lower standards for some qualifications and rethink rules that give precedence to German and EU applicants.

“If we want to make integration succeed, we will need much more flexibility in the labor market,” Ifo’s Wößmann said. “We need reforms to reduce bureaucratic barriers, including lowering the minimum wage in certain cases. The alternative is that the majority of refugees remains without work, and this would be an even greater burden for our social system.”

The government is already preparing for an additional 1 million recipients of its main unemployment benefit, known as Hartz IV, by 2019.

A big worry among Germany’s political establishment is that a failure to integrate the refugees into the workforce would bolster the country’s resurgent right-wing populists and further inflame social tensions.

German unemployment is the lowest since reunification but one-fifth of unskilled laborers are without work.

One hope is that many of the younger refugees will find work through the country’s vocational education system. During the courses, which usually last for three years, trainees attend classes at a vocational school and receive on-the-job training at a company.

The problem is that almost half of all refugees coming to Germany are over 25 and are unlikely to go through a formal three-year training program, simply because they are too old.

Instead, they would most likely join the ranks of the 20 percent unemployed among the low- and unqualified workers of the country and compete for low-skilled jobs.

Overall, German unemployment is the lowest since reunification but one-fifth of unskilled laborers are without work. In other words, the influx of refugees is likely to further swell the ranks of the jobless unskilled.

Despite those challenges, many economists argue that Germany’s economy will eventually wither without an extended phase of immigration.

If the carmakers and engineering companies that propel German exports can’t get enough qualified workers at home, they will simply go elsewhere.

To maintain the current size of its labor force, Germany would need as many as 500,000 immigrants per year through 2050, a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation concluded last year.

Immigration to Germany has hovered around that level over the past couple of years, as many Europeans relocated to Germany to escape the malaise in their own countries. But with EU immigration expected to taper, some see the influx of refugees as a blessing in disguise.

“This is a huge opportunity for this country that could strengthen Germany’s position in the global economy in the coming decades,” Deutsche Bank Chief Economist David Folkerts-Landau told Die Welt last month. “I could even imagine a cultural and economic renaissance.”