GERMANS are famous for hard work and efficiency, but not necessarily for entrepreneurialism. They are less likely to start a new business than Americans, Swedes or even the French (see chart). But the country’s recent wave of immigration appears to be giving its startup rate a boost. In 2015, 44% of newly registered businesses in Germany were founded by people with foreign passports, up from just 13% in 2003. In all, about one-fifth of those engaged in entrepreneurial activity were born abroad.
That is likely to grow with the arrival of over a million refugees in the past two years. The number of self-employed people with a Middle Eastern background rose by almost two-thirds between 2005 and 2014, according to René Leicht and Stefan Berwing, researchers at the University of Mannheim. “There has been a marked increase in founding activity by people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Maik Leonhardt of IHK Berlin, an association of small and medium enterprises.
Some refugees come to Germany already dreaming of running their own firm. Iyad Slik’s family has a confectionery company in Syria, and when he arrived in...Continue reading
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