Germany's population reaches 82.2 mln in 2015

Germany's population reached 82.2 million at the end of last year, recording the biggest yearly increase of about 980,000 people since 1992, the country's official statistics office Destatis said on Friday.

It was also a strong year-on-year increase of 1.2 percent, 0.7 percent higher than the previous year.

Among them, 8.7 million didn't have German passports. The foreign population increased in 2015 by 14.7 percent compared with the year before, the highest since the reunification of Germany 26 years ago.

It was estimated that about 900,000 refugees arrived in Germany last year, according to Herbert Bruecker, a labor market researcher from the employment research institute IAB.

The demographic problems, including social security, lack of skilled labors and left-behind elderly in rural areas were not changed by the population increase, said Stephan Sievert from Berlin Institute for Population and Development.

Labor Minister Andrea Nahles said recently that refugees alone could not completely meet the skilled labor shortages of the country, Germany must also specifically attract skilled immigrants to come.

Source : XINHUA