Albanian emigrants to Germany have tripled in the last 4 years

 

 Germany is one of the main destinations of Albanian immigrants. This is also shown by the latest figures published by the Albanian State Institute of Statistics (ASIS), wherein four years the number of Albanian emigrants has more than tripled. In 2019, according to ASIS, 50,400 thousand Albanian emigrants lived or worked in Germany, or 4.2% of the total Albanian emigrants in the world after the '90s. According to the United Nations data for 2019, the number of Albanian emigrants in the world is about 1.2 million.

Data from the United Nations and other countries' statistics institutes help illustrate the most important destinations for Albanian immigrants. Italy and Greece have the highest percentage of Albanian citizens living abroad (about 75 percent). Followed by the USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, etc. The following table shows the percentage distribution of Albanian emigrants by main destinations for the period 1995 - 2019.

The graph below shows the annual growth rate of the total number of Albanian emigrants in the four main countries by destination. It is noted that the number of immigrants to Italy, Greece and the US has increased intensively over the five years periods - 1990 - 1994 and 1995 - 1999, which constitute the period of massive Albanian emigration.

Between 1990 and 1994, the number of Albanian immigrants to Greece, Italy and the United States increased annually by about 30%. These rates fall to around 11% during the period 1995 - 1999. After 2000, the rate of increase in the number of Albanian emigrants to Greece declines rapidly and reached negative levels during the period 2010 - 2019. This means that, according to the data of the United Nations, the total number of Albanian emigrants in Greece is decreasing.

During the period 2015 - 2019, even in the case of Italy and the US, the annual growth rate of the number of emigrants has decreased steadily, reaching to about 3%.

On the other hand, the number of Albanian emigrants in Germany has changed at a pace other than that of Italy, Greece and the US. During 1990 - 1994, this number increased by about 10% per year. Subsequently, the annual growth rate decreased steadily, reaching around 1%, during the period 2010 - 2014. Only after 2015, the number of Albanian emigrants in Germany began to increase rapidly.

During 2008-2009, 22.8 thousand Albanians gained Greek citizenship; in Italy, 14,000 Albanians have acquired Italian citizenship. Thus, along with an unknown number of unregistered Albanians, the Albanian population abroad would be larger. On the other hand, the Albanian citizenship abroad includes the second generation of children born outside of Albania who should not be considered immigrants. The growth at an annual rate of about 35% in Germany, makes this country their preferred destination. This has made for the number of Albanian in Germany to get quadruple from 1.3% to 4.2%.