New Zealand looks to Germany for skilled immigrants

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New Zealand, which has a shortage of skilled workers, is looking to Germany to find more workers.

A recruitment agency said a number of regional development organizations, recruitment companies and the Department of Labour's Immigration Service will start a campaign in October for skilled migrants at an employment expo in Bonn and Potsdam.

A statement said that Germany - which is struggling with economic restructuring, 5 million unemployed and high taxation - has a surplus of skilled labour, particularly in engineering, construction, industrial sectors and trades and could ease the chronic skill shortage affecting many sectors of the New Zealand economy.

Ross Stanway - chief executive of Priority One, an economic development organization in the North Island's Bay of Plenty - said there are hundreds of vacancies in his region, where 13,000 businesses were struggling to grow due to a shortage of skilled workers.

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