Does immigration affect native's labor market outcomes in Germany?

Germany is one of the several countries in Europe that have opened its borders to immigrants for many years. The admission of immigrants into Germany has contributed to the country being the second largest immigration destination in the world, and this has resulted in both negative and positive outcomes for the natives. In this essay, the effect of immigration on natives’ hourly wages and employment was examined, by using microdata for Germany. Native workers’ educational level attainments and 16 different regions in Germany were taken into account to obtain regional variation. Cross-sectional data was used for the years 2005, 2009 and 2015 in order to measure the effect of the share of immigrants on natives’ hourly wages and employment. The findings showed that the share of immigrants, had a positive effect on natives’ wages and employment in 2005 and 2009. In 2015, however, a negative relationship was found, with the share of immigrants impacting negatively on natives’ wages but not on employment. Thus, the study highlights the importance of immigrants on natives’ hourly wages and employment