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Brain Drain Within the EU?

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Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#151

Post by tigershark »

rleigh wrote: post #30
arximboldi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Spaniard living in Germany... part of that very same problem. Anyways, "taxes and bureaucracy" is not the problem of the of the european south. In fact, taxes and bureaucracy are both way higher in Germany. The problems are more complex and historical. The EU economic crisis have been abused by right-wingers to argue that we have a too heavy social system. In fact, the demolition of the social system in the so…

Surely a major factor for problems in both Italy and Spain is the crippling effect of the Euro and EU regulation. If the Euro were scrapped, it could make the economies much more competitive. Just look at how the drop in the pound over the last two years boosted British industry and exports. That's not an option for countries shackled to the Euro.

British economy went from a growth of ~3% before the Brexit to half of that after the Brexit. Italy economy with the lira in the ‘90s was completely stagnant. Please avoid spreading misinformation passing your conjectures for facts.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#152

Post by holografix »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #128
ciguy wrote: post #18

I'm living in Italy at the moment, and I can watch the brain drain happening in real time. Every single university student I know here is looking to go to the UK or Germany when they graduate, almost without exception. I can't blame them at all, taxes are excessive and bureaucracy is excruciating here. Finding even a temporary job usually requires family connections, so the dumbest people with connections end up as m…

Is it really about taxes? Most taxes are in Belgium where I live and I don't think there's a brain drain

I don’t mean to offend you but as a foreigner living in Brussels the taxes and overall cost of living, for the services you receive, are shockingly terrible.

The inefficieny of the Belgium bureaucracy is like nothing I have ever seen before and if Italy is any worse I can’t blame a single soul for abandoning ship.

I visited Milan a month ago and was very happily surprised at how clean and orderly the city seemed. A welcomed reprieve from graffiti and trash dominated Brussels.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#153

Post by repolfx »

ben_w wrote: post #69
rleigh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that both are factors. However, it was fairly easy to work in different European countries before the EU or the EEC existed, it just needed some paperwork filling out, so I'm inclined to think this is a lesser factor. There was migration for work between western European countries such as UK/Germany/France/Italy for well over a century. It has certainly increased in recent decades, but it's not at all new. I…

I’ve just moved from the UK to Germany. This was primarily enabled by Google translate and online courses like Duolingo, and by websites making the necessary tasks known and understandable. The Euro is icing on the cake, not the… I guess the metaphor would imply “the main course”?

rleigh isn't arguing that the Euro makes it easier to migrate, which is what you seem to be getting at.

He's arguing that, essentially, countries like Italy, Spain, Greece etc cannot reform their cultures and without the Euro would effectively be forced to re-calibrate their economies by a sinking exchange rate. That is, they'd be unable to afford foreign exports so they'd buy more domestic products, and that in turn would grow their economy. But in the euro there are no floating exchange rates, and people are very reluctant to pay themselves less, and governments are very reluctant to pay out less in benefits, and the EU/ECB is very willing to finance all of this with money printing and huge bailout "loans" .... so in the end there's no incentive to reform or make it easier to get things done.

Convenience of currency changes when migrating is certainly not the issue at hand.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#154

Post by tigershark »

repolfx wrote: post #149
ben_w wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British industry growth has become unstable rather than higher since the pound collapsed. British exports have mainly gone up because gold (which doesn’t come from the UK, it just happened to be stored there) is being moved out of the country in economically significant quantities. https://www.ft.com/content/0407854e-f9d0-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3... This isn’t to say the Euro is brilliant or not, I don’t have the knowledg…

The pound hasn't collapsed, that's why. Look at a graph of GBPUSD. The pound spent all of 2017 increasing in value, and you'll see that by the start of 2018 the pound had erased the entire drop that followed the EU referendum - it was back to the value it was at the start of 2016. The fluctuations since then have been within the same sort of range as is normal for such a currency: the fall since April is of about the…

Before looking at the numbers you need to understand what the numbers actually mean. The gbp value has indeed collapsed. Whoever is telling the contrary is plainly lying. The gbp eur fx before the Brexit was over 1.40, now it is 1.11. Obviously you look at the gbp usd graph that has nothing to do with the strength of the gbp because the major business partner of the UK is the EU, not the US, and by far. The gbp usd graph that you are using as a proof of your fantasies just highlights that the USD also lost value in the last two years. Can I please know where do you live? I live in UK and I can attest for sure to the GBP collapse and the economy that is growing at half the pace as before. I lost thousands of pounds already because of the Brexit.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#155

Post by dogma1138 »

olavgg wrote: post #73
dogma1138 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for us, finance has slightly above average comp packages especially the bonus but in London it’s possible to get to 100K as an engineer outside of it it begins to drop drastically some tech hubs can have high salaries but Manchester for example tops out at around 80K and that’s also pretty hard to get. Outside of the UK you might be lucky to get €50-60K even when working for US firms on average this includes Ger…

CoL? Seriously here in Norway getting over 100K € annually is becoming normal. If you are really talented, then you can even make 150k € annually. Freelancers make over 200k € annually. There is a huge shortage for developers these days, much thanks to "digital transformation" trend.

The tax and cost of living in the Nordic countries is pretty steep even compared to the rest of Europe.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#156

Post by woodpanel »

expathacker wrote: post #146
woodpanel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(fictional, simplified) Example for a Software Engineer based in Germany [1]: Gross income: 100.000 EUR / year [2] ------------------------- TAXES - Income tax (28.600 EUR) - "solidarity premium" (2.300 EUR) - church tax (1.600 € - cumpolsory until you leave the curch) SOCIAL SECURITY (compulsory) - unemployed insurance (1.200 EUR) - pension insurance (7.300 EUR) - health insurance (4.500 EUR) - long term care (800 E…

Tangenitally, I'm curious about the unemployment insurance. What does it cover? In the United States, unemployment insurance is compulsory for employers, but it only covers two specific cases: laid-off due to inability to pay salary, laid-off due to your skills no longer being required. Quitting / being fired / getting sick puts you out on the street. Is it the same in Europe?

Every country has its own laws. In Germany it is a historically grown two-tier system:

The "basic" one (ALG 2) which amounts to ~9-12 EUR/day + rent (if it is a reasonable flat) [1] It comes with a lot of strings attached, like you have to use up your savings first and can recieve penalties if you don't show up for job interviews etc.

The "premium" one (ALG 1) pays you ~65% of your last 12 months gross income regardless of savings and termination pay. You guessed it, for that to make sense you would have to be employed at least 12 month before becoming jobless and at a sufficient pay-rate. Also it is limited to 1 year (after that -> ALG2)

PS: Health-insurance is included

[1] grossly simplified

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#157

Post by lispm »

jayalpha wrote: post #113
egeozcan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can learn German rather easily (with a pretty distinct accent, which I really like :)). Your point stands though, as they usually don't know this before they actually start learning, so they must have other reasons.

"Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can learn German rather easily" I doubt that. While English is part of the West Germanic languages, there are huge grammatical differences. I assume it would be much easier for a Polish or Russian Person to learn German than for an English. The sentence "Man bites Dog" and "Dog bites Man" has a different meaning in English, due to to position o…

Mann beisst Hund.

Hund beisst Mann.

Perfect German. Different meaning.

I doubt that Polish people or Russian people learn German much easier. Somehow in English speaking countries there is this fear to learn a very similar language.

There are numbers how long it takes for an English speaker to learn a different language... German belongs to the easiest group.

https://blog.thelinguist.com/how-long-should-it-take-to-lear...

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#158

Post by decode »

expathacker wrote: post #146
woodpanel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(fictional, simplified) Example for a Software Engineer based in Germany [1]: Gross income: 100.000 EUR / year [2] ------------------------- TAXES - Income tax (28.600 EUR) - "solidarity premium" (2.300 EUR) - church tax (1.600 € - cumpolsory until you leave the curch) SOCIAL SECURITY (compulsory) - unemployed insurance (1.200 EUR) - pension insurance (7.300 EUR) - health insurance (4.500 EUR) - long term care (800 E…

Tangenitally, I'm curious about the unemployment insurance. What does it cover? In the United States, unemployment insurance is compulsory for employers, but it only covers two specific cases: laid-off due to inability to pay salary, laid-off due to your skills no longer being required. Quitting / being fired / getting sick puts you out on the street. Is it the same in Europe?

In Germany, you can also collect unemployment benefits after you've quit or been fired with cause. However, in those cases there is a waiting period of 12 weeks before you can start collecting benefits. If you have been laid off for reasons not related to your performance, including for long-term illness, you can start collecting benefits immediately.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#160

Post by ciumonk »

petre wrote: post #108
KSteffensen wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to Denmark. It's been rated in the top 5 world wide on the 'ease of doing business' since 2012 and ahead of the USA since 2015. [1] Pretty much all bureaucracy happens online and my experience as an individual, is that it's minimal. I've never tried running a business , so I can't say anything on the bureaucracy there. We don't have that nice Southern France climate, though. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Denmark has crazy high taxes. I know several cases of people moving to Switzerland and other EU countries to escape the tax burden.

And a crazy good social safety net. If you're having any sort of difficulty(ranging from depression to bankruptcy), you'll get adequate state support(income, subsidised housing and healthcare) for a long time. I wonder why more people don't start businesses there, given that it's seldom fatal to risk and fail..
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