Migration increasingly affects the labour market in Eastern Germany, having effects on employment and unemployment figures as well as the number of recipients of social assistance benefits under the SGB II regulations. Particularly with countries in Middle and Eastern Europe, countries affected by the European debt and confidence crisis and with people seeking asylum, there are large increases meeting the dimensions in Western Germany. However, migrants overall still form a significantly smaller percentage of the population and other labour market parameters in Eastern Germany, since migration was a lot stronger in Western Germany during the last decades. While on the short run negative effects on unemployment have to be expected, there are also chances, in the medium- and long-term, to soften the expectable demographic problems, if integration and qualification are supported.