56 percent of German Start-Ups have international staff

Internationalisation is high on the list of German-based digital start-ups: 6 out of 10 start-ups employ international staff. On average, people from five different countries work together on a team. The bigger the company, the more important becomes the ‘international mix’.  That is evident from a survey conducted by the German digital association Bitkom amongst 150 Start-Up founders.

Bitkom-executive Niklas Veltkamp comments: “The German start-up scene is internationally oriented and reaps the benefits from the fact that highly educated and motivated people from all over the world want to live and work here. Unfortunately, one of the biggest challenges for many start-ups are the bureaucratic obstacles and lengthy processes when they want to employ non-EU-citizens.”

At present, 39% of all surveyed start-ups employ professionals from non-European countries. „Start-ups represent internationality and cross-border exchange, enabled by the internet. English is the working language in many start-ups. It becomes irrelevant, which passport an employee has,” believes Veltkamp.