Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed support for immigration to provide skills for the German economy at an event in Rheinstetten near the border with France on Sunday.
The Social Democrat chancellor noted that there had been high unemployment in many German regions 15 or 20 years ago, but said that this had changed.
"With those from the baby boomer years now retiring, we have to watch out that we are not threatened by a lack of workers," he said.
The government was working to prevent this, through boosting education and vocational training, and by improving childcare services, he said. "Nevertheless this will evidently not be sufficient, and for this reason we need women and men, from other countries as well, to take things on here with us."
German business was not asking where people came from, rather what they could offer and achieve. "Our country needs precisely this attitude," Scholz said.
The government was currently drafting perhaps the most modern immigration laws for workers in the world, Scholz said. Both large companies and Germany's medium-sized firms would benefit.
"We have every reason to fall in love with the future," Scholz said. "Because all the prophets of doom, the diehards, the doubters, they're wrong," he said in a swipe at right-wing politicians opposed to migration.
