STUTTGART, Germany (AP) — A German city is preparing to send planes pulling banners saying "Back to Germany" buzzing over major U.S. cities in an effort to woo back Germans working abroad and fill a skilled labor shortage.
Officials in Stuttgart say they want to lure back high-tech employees hurt by the economic downturn in the United States.
The city is also preparing a Web site plugging the advantages of returning. The planes are to fly over New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco starting Sept. 5.
"If we can bring 300 new people to the Stuttgart region, it would be a big success," the organizer of the campaign, Walter Rogg, was quoted as saying by the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper.
Funded by about 30 firms including luxury carmaker Porsche and mobile phone company Debitel, the $230,000 campaign also includes ads in the New York Times and on Germany's international television channel, Deutsche Welle.
The German government is planning a new immigration law to attract foreigners to fill vacancies in fast-growing areas such as computer programming and electronics. But Rogg said that initiative was ignoring the drain of native talent.
"We've forgotten our most important target group — the tens of thousands of German experts who have emigrated in recent years, particularly to the United States," he told German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.
On the Web: www.move-back.com