Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Economy on the Rise
It's a been a long road to recovery but Berlin is finally seeing slivers of sunlight on the hori-
zon. Since 2005 its economy has consistently outpaced that of Germany as a whole, and the
city is also leading the nation in new job creation. Although still 4.5% above the national
average, unemployment dropped by two points to 11% in 2014.
It's Berlin's transformation from an industrial to a knowledge-based society that's at the
root of this development. The growth of the digital economy especially has stimulated the
job market. The city today attracts some of the world's brightest minds and invests heavily
in such high-tech fields as biotechnology, communication and environmental technologies
and transportation. In fact, the city now ranks among the top three innovative regions in the
European Union.
Since 2006 Berlin has also positioned itself as Germany's start-up capital. Staffed by
smart young professionals, these enterprises in turn feed talent into the research-and-devel-
opment outfits of bigger companies. The 2014 opening in Prenzlauer Berg of The Factory, a
Google-sponsored campus that brings together early-stage start-ups and established tech
ventures such as Soundcloud and Mozilla, is a key indicator that Berlin-grown vision is
ready for the big time.
Tourism continues to be another major driving force economically, with the number of
annual overnight visitors breaking new records every year; in 2013 it soared to 11.3 million,
five times as many as in 1993. And that's not even counting the roughly 100 million day
trippers per year. The creative and cultural fields are booming as well, and their financial
impact, though less tangible, cannot not be discounted either.
Still, the news is not all good. Berlin, which is one of 17 German federal states, has the
highest number of welfare recipients among them. And although the city has reined in
spending, keeping its books balanced remains tough with a debt legacy hovering around €60
billion.
Multiculturalism & Immigration
Berlin's multiculturalism is one of its greatest assets, even if successful social and economic
integration remain major challenges. About 470,000 people of non-German nationality from
around 190 countries live here today, accounting for about 13% of the total population.
Turks constitute the largest community, a legacy of the worker migration of the 1960s and
'70s to West Berlin. In East Berlin, contract labour came in smaller numbers from Vietnam,
Cuba and Poland. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the united city has also absorbed about
100,000 people from the former Soviet republics. In recent years the global fiscal crisis and
