Germany Expects 500,000 Refugees This Year, Report Says

487102960 — A placard reading "Welcome to Germany" is fixed on a wall in Dortmund, Germany, on Sept. 6, 2015, where refugees were expected to arrive. Maja Hitij/AFP/Getty Images

The German government expects 500,000 refugees to come to Germany this year, German newspaper Rheinische Post cited sources from the Federal Labor Office as saying.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told Frank-Juergen Weise, head of both the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and the Federal Labor Office, to prepare for an influx of that size this year, the newspaper said in an advance copy of a report due to be published on Tuesday.

The German Interior Ministry was not immediately available to comment on the report.

Last year some 1.1 million migrants arrived in Germany. German media tend to use the word refugee to refer to both refugees and migrants.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Alison Williams)