An employee retires. Someone else takes their place. That simple sequence underpins many warnings about future labour shortages. But what if the business has changed enough to leave the position unfilled? The profession still exists. The work still gets done. The number of people needed to do it has changed.
This is the starting point of Ronny Schmidt’s German-language essay, Die Migration, die wir vielleicht nicht brauchen. Its title translates as “The Immigration We May Not Need”. Schmidt examines the economic case for further immigration as artificial intelligence and robotics reshape work. His central question is deceptively simple: does an ageing population, on its own, tell us how many additional workers a country will need?
The missing variable
Schmidt looks beneath job titles at the tasks people are paid to perform. His examples range from software development, legal services and administration to manufacturing, logistics and transport. He considers AI agents that handle extended workflows and robots that take over particular physical tasks, asking what their capabilities might mean for the amount of human labour required. A business can grow, retain its staff and still hire far fewer people than earlier forecasts assumed.
Across 18 chapters, these changes within businesses are connected to larger political promises. Schmidt pays close attention to distinctions that public debate often blurs. A person of working age is not automatically an available skilled worker. Employment does not, by itself, establish a positive fiscal balance over a lifetime. A company’s successful recruitment can also create demands on the municipality where its new employees live.
Some of the most revealing passages test the book’s own premise. New technology can generate demand and employment. Care work continues to require human attention. A convincing demonstration of a robot does not establish economy-wide change. The qualification in the title matters: Schmidt considers these objections while asking why projections of labour demand should be treated as settled when their underlying assumptions remain open.
Who benefits, and who bears the costs?
The discussion extends to integration, public finances, housing, schools and administrative capacity. Public safety also forms part of this wider assessment. Schmidt examines both the consequences for people’s lives and the limits of the figures used to describe them. He distinguishes suspects from convicted offenders and statistical categories from individual responsibility. For readers accustomed to following social developments through individual news reports, this offers a reason to examine how the broader arguments are constructed.
The final chapters raise a question with immediate relevance beyond immigration policy: how do people support themselves if less of their labour is needed? Schmidt considers social insurance, participation in investment returns, shorter working hours and the relationship between employment and self-worth. The discussion reaches into decisions about education, household income and the future value of hard-earned experience.
An argument worth examining
Schmidt’s style is pointed, with a dry impatience for political complacency. Examples, clearly identified thought experiments and sources arranged by chapter allow readers to follow the reasoning. The book’s distinctive appeal lies in bringing demographic change, immigration and the organisation of work into one sustained discussion.
It is written for readers who want to examine the assumptions behind consequential economic and social decisions. Agreement with the title is not a prerequisite. A willingness to revisit a familiar argument is – particularly when it is your own.
Book details
- Author: Ronny Schmidt
- Title: Die Migration, die wir vielleicht nicht brauchen
- Subtitle: Einwanderung soll uns retten. Was, wenn KI und Roboter die Arbeit übernehmen?
- Language: German
- Paperback: 190 pages
- Publication date: 8 September 2026
- ISBN-13: 979-8172759505
View the German-language paperback on Amazon
About the author: Ronny Schmidt
