European Labour Market: Germany welcomes southern Europe's best and brightest into its workforce - by Marie de Verges

Unemployment rates continue to break records in the eurozone, and there is little chance of an improvement this year. The crisis in the jobs market across Europe is hitting young people hardest, setting in motion new migratory patterns between Mediterranean countries and the north.

Germany stands out as an exception. Despite sluggish growth in the EU's largest economy, unemployment is steady: good news that won't fall on deaf ears. In the past two years, the net number of people entering Germany rose from 128,000 to 340,000. German businesses are drawing on a fresh source of cheap, qualified labour from Greece and Spain.

After five years in higher education, Paschalis Lampridis, 25, left Greece – and its labour market devastated by recession and austerity – and headed for Frankfurt, the business capital of a country where companies are still producing, investing and, above all, hiring. That was a year ago. Now, working as a computer programmer for the tyre firm Continental, Lampridis refuses to indulge in nostalgia. Obviously, he sometimes dreams of sea and sun. The winter in Frankfurt has been overcast and persistently cold, but, he says, "There was no future for me at home."

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