Europe, Asia roll out the welcome mat for Indian talent amid US curbs

With the US tightening immigration, countries such as Germany, Japan, Singapore and Russia are looking to attract more Indian students and skilled workers

Amid the Donald Trump administration’s efforts to make it more difficult for Indian skilled workers to migrate to the US, and with the number of Indian students enrolling in American universities having dipped, countries in Europe and Asia have been keen to attract skilled workers and students from India.

 

The number of Indian students enrolling in German universities, for example, increased from 20,684 in 2022 to 34,702 in 2024.

 

In 2024, the German visa centre in Bengaluru issued 36,000 visas for long-term stays, and the number is increasing, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said at a media briefing in New Delhi earlier this month during his visit to India.

 

Germany wants to create more opportunities for Indian skilled labour and students who aim to come to Germany, Wadephul said. In a video message, Philipp Ackermann, Germany ambassador to India and Bhutan, said on Wednesday that “highly skilled Indians are welcome in Germany”.

 

Wadephul, during his India visit, said, “In 2024, almost a third of all student visas globally were issued in India.” Germany is working to increase the number of schools in India that offer German as a foreign language from 58 partner schools to 1,000 soon, he added.

 

Germany has almost 60,000 Indian students, “which makes them already today the largest group of international students in Germany”, Wadephul said. “Many of them choose to stay because we urgently need highly skilled and highly qualified labour. With our strategy on highly skilled labour from India, we already support the area of getting these talents to come to Germany. It’s already now a genuine success story,” he added.

 

According to the German foreign minister, Indian skilled workers in Germany are successful in their jobs, earn above-average incomes, and show above-average integration. “They are an asset for the German labour market,” he said.

 

A key bilateral agreement signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tokyo on August 30 was an “action plan for India-Japan human resource exchange and cooperation”. It will target an exchange of more than 500,000 personnel in both directions over the next five years, including 50,000 skilled personnel and potential talent from India to Japan.

 

Singapore, during the visit of its Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to India in the first week of September, committed to developing a National Centre of Excellence in Chennai, which will create a skills certification framework and skill centres in sectors of mutual interest, and resolved to support state-level skilling cooperation with Singapore, such as the Singapore-Assam Nursing Talent Skills Cooperation.

 

Similarly, some Nordic countries, especially Sweden, are keen to attract more Indian students and skilled workers. Along with an increasing number of Indian students heading to Central Asian countries, Georgia, and Russia to study, Moscow is also keen to host skilled Indian workers.

 

India Ambassador to Moscow Vinay Kumar told a Russian news agency last month that the consular workload has increased with more Indians coming to work in Russia. The number of Indian students heading to Russia increased from 19,784 in 2022 to 31,444 in 2024.