MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise in Germany is raising concerns in the country's business community, especially in the eastern German state of Saxony where the far-right Alternative for Germany party is leading the polls ahead of Sunday's state elections. Esme Nicholson has this report.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
ESME NICHOLSON, BYLINE: Countless languages can be heard at this job fair in the eastern city of Leipzig, where new arrivals from all over the world are being courted by some of Germany's largest blue-chip employers. The city's hospitals are here, too. Latinka Martin (ph) is a recruiter for Leipzig's university clinic.
LATINKA MARTIN: (Through interpreter) This region is desperate for skilled workers, whether in health care or industry. At our clinic, 500 nurses will retire over the next decade. That's almost half of our auxiliary staff.
NICHOLSON: Mustafa (ph) takes a leaflet for his wife, a qualified nurse. They are both from Iran and have been here nine months. Mustafa, who won't give his surname in case he has to return home, says they think they've made the right decision in coming here.
MUSTAFA: (Through interpreter) Most Germans are very friendly, and we're pretty happy here. But every now and then, people hurl abuse at us right in the middle of town.
NICHOLSON: Some of the companies with stands here today, like Siemens and Deutsche Bahn, have joined Germany's other major corporations in warning that the far right is bad for business.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHURCH BELLS RINGING)
NICHOLSON: That concern is shared in the nearby city of Dresden, the state capital, where companies like Infineon, Bosch and GlobalFoundries make a third of Europe's microchips.
DIRK ROHRBORN: Immigration is important for us.
NICHOLSON: Dirk Rohrborn is the president of Silicon Saxony, which represents these companies and another 500 that make up the region's lucrative semiconductor sector.
ROHRBORN: I'm meeting a lot of entrepreneurs here in the region, and a lot of people are concerned that the political situation or maybe the safety situation will have a negative impact on our economy.
NICHOLSON: Rohrborn says Saxony can't afford to scare away the best talent from abroad. He says he's alarmed by the AfD's increasingly racist rhetoric.
MARTINA JOST: (Through interpreter) It's a complete lie that the AfD is anti-immigration.
NICHOLSON: Martina Jost is an AfD lawmaker in Saxony's state Parliament.
JOST: (Through interpreter) Of course we want highly qualified, skilled workers to come here. What we don't want is the uncontrolled immigration that is overwhelming our cities and health care system.
NICHOLSON: Recent revelations that AfD members discussed so-called remigration plans that would see the mass deportation of what they called unintegrated immigrants has spooked many, including Fatema Darbar who came here from India 10 years ago.
FATEMA DARBAR: I am slightly shaken because, you know, there is no worse feeling than knowing that you live somewhere, and there's a large part of the population that doesn't want you here, and they are afraid of you, or they are afraid of people who look like you.
NICHOLSON: Darbar fears having to leave the city and country she's made her home, just as Saxony's semiconductor industry fears losing the skilled workforce that has helped this region of former Communist east Germany get back on its economic feet.
For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Saxony.
(SOUNDBITE OF BALANESCU QUARTET'S "COMPUTER LOVE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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