Economic Restructuring and the Role of Foreign Workers in the 1980s: The Case of Germany

A growing body of literature suggests that the new forms of economic activity associated with post-Fordist restructuring offer limited opportunities for the types of unskilled and semiskilled jobs associated with the employment of foreign workers in Western Europe. In this paper this proposition is tested by examining the impact of economic restructuring on West Germany's foreign work force in the 1980s. With data for the socially insured section of the employed population it is demonstrated that male foreign workers in particular have been differentially and adversely affected across the entire range of manufacturing and construction industries, with a gradual replacement of foreign by indigenous workers. Contraction of employment in these crucial sectors was only partially compensated by a limited expansion of employment for mainly female foreign workers in selected service activities. The analysis also indicates that this general retreat of foreign labour has been mediated by regional differences in overall economic performance, expressed in a widening north-south divide and a growing focus on core areas of foreign population. It is concluded that the German economy in the post-Fordist phase has witnessed a further marginalisation of its foreign work force, long seen as a ‘structural necessity’.