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Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

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Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#231

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

dgs_sgd wrote: post #226
ikut3hva wrote: post #165

Hi everyone I don’t usually comment on topics like this because there are so many biases and different perspectives involved. In the end, I believe only the person who has actually gone through the experience can truly understand it; otherwise, it often becomes just another judgment. We are an ASEAN family earning more than €200k gross annually (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it—please keep re…

I appreciate your perspective, but I was curious what B1 proficiency actually entails and this is what I found [1]: - understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar topics such as work, school, or leisure - manage most situations that occur while traveling in German-speaking areas - produce simple, connected text on familiar subjects - describe experiences, events, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and b…

B1 is a completely fair minimum standard. It's normal for many countries to expect residents to have basic conversational adequacy.

It's also the kind of requirement that's made explicit on government information about residency. So it shouldn't have been a surprise.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#232

Post by dghlsakjg »

chis wrote: post #221
malshe wrote: post #130

Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citizen married to a German man. However, she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one. By contrast, when I became an American citizen, my American friends (white and hispanic) insisted that they attend the naturalization ceremony.

It is an interesting divide. "German" is both an ethnicity and a citizenship, and it's possible to become one but not the other. "American" on the other hand is purely a citizenship, and so it is possible to become an American after immigrating.

If German is an ethnicity, I don't see why the US, which is older than the German Confederation (let alone the subsequent countries that have existed since then on that same land) has a distinct culture and set of shared values, cannot be.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#233

Post by eldaisfish »

joe_mamba wrote: post #146
malshe wrote: post #130

Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citizen married to a German man. However, she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one. By contrast, when I became an American citizen, my American friends (white and hispanic) insisted that they attend the naturalization ceremony.

As someone who lived in the US briefly, I found Americans are just a lot more hospitable to foreigners, than Germans and most other Europeans in general. Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you i…

sad to see this downvoted because it is very much true. European society loves to pretend that they are these progressive, enlightened people. In reality, what they are is just better at hiding their racism and xenophobia.

Your last point is largely wrong. The primary difference between immigrants to the US and to Europe is in qualifications. The majority of US immigrants are skilled. The majority of immigrants to Europe are not skilled. It is then no surprise that immigrants to the US tend to integrate better than immigrants to Europe.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#234

Post by trinix912 »

uludag wrote: post #104
sdsdssweew213 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hardly call it "world class". Most of the world is much harsher place to migrants than any EU member country. Privileged, well paid expats may be treated nicely in most of the world, but that does not apply to refugees and people who move for low-paid manual labor.

Well paid expats wearing a hijab, who definitely aren't refugees, will not be treated nicely in Germany. Lived and worked in Germany and saw it a lot. It's a low bar indeed to treat skilled labor coming to your country nicely that sadly Germany can't even pass.

You are kind of expected to adjust yourself to the culture of the country you’re immigrating to. If you fail (or refuse) to do so in the most obvious/visible ways possible (like clothing), I think you shouldn’t be surprised when people look at you weird because you look out of place.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#235

Post by throwaway27448 »

akudha wrote: post #125

All this discussion makes me wonder - is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy? Assuming the immigrant makes every effort to integrate (learning the language, respecting local people/customs etc). It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media? I don't know for sure.

Immigration does generally improve the economy, but it doesn't happen overnight, and this is an incredibly easy anxiety to exploit for short-term political gain.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#236

Post by graemep »

haritha-j wrote: post #173
graemep wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people want to migrate from one country to another, so they clearly think their own lives would be improved (bar a few doing it altruistically). As for including the locals lives, how? You might be bringing skills they need, or money. Do you mean purely socially? That is very subjective. I think the media exaggerate the hostility. IMO most of the hostility here in the UK is aimed at 1) illegal immigrants and…

Because it’s quite difficult to tell whether someone is in the UK illegally just by looking at them, I imagine some of that hostility isn’t very well contained.

Hard to know because its very rarely overt IRL and social media does not give you a good sample.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#237

Post by dgs_sgd »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #231
dgs_sgd wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your perspective, but I was curious what B1 proficiency actually entails and this is what I found [1]: - understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar topics such as work, school, or leisure - manage most situations that occur while traveling in German-speaking areas - produce simple, connected text on familiar subjects - describe experiences, events, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and b…

B1 is a completely fair minimum standard. It's normal for many countries to expect residents to have basic conversational adequacy. It's also the kind of requirement that's made explicit on government information about residency. So it shouldn't have been a surprise.

Like, I imagine if I moved to a country and couldn’t do the B1 things in their language, I would have daily obstacles doing basic life things.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#238

Post by dghlsakjg »

eldaisfish wrote: post #225
IncreasePosts wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, the oldest German citizens are 155 years old. Like the country. And by that logic even many native Americans are immigrants. The Apache and Sioux people were living up in canada by the Great lakes near the time Spaniards were on the continent and then started migrating south westward. Not to even mention all of the natives who were forcibly moved out of their original places or fled due to war/famine/et…

no, that's not true. The nation of Germany might not have existed, but the ethnic groups who would later define Germany very much did.

Your argument is that a group of independent states spanning a huge part of a continent that banded together into a country in the 1800s forms a country that is also an ethnicity, but that a group of independent states spanning a huge part of a continent that banded together even longer ago is not a country that is also an ethnicity?

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#239

Post by throwaway27448 »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #186
rdbl27 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The United States. Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the language and customs. Much more than any other country on Earth.

Have you watched the news in the past couple of years?

In practice, even the Trump administration is far less hostile to immigration than their rhetoric would betray.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#240

Post by vladms »

bell-cot wrote: post #81
ahf8Aithaex7Nai wrote: post #71

I am the son of a (Cuban) immigrant and a German woman. Once, the police asked me if I spoke German, probably because my hair is dark and my eyes are brown. Germany has a bias against “southerners”—the darker your skin, the worse it is. If your skin is light and your eyes are light-colored, you won’t even be perceived as an immigrant as long as you keep your mouth shut. But if you look southern or Asian, you’ll alway…

> It's gotten to the point where I've now lost faith in democracy. Things aren't getting better... "it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" - unknown, often attributed to Churchill Rah-rah democracy advocates, and patriots of countries which imagine themselves democratic, often attribute all sort of mythical virtues to democr…

I think that the financialization of wealth is a problem of education not of the political system. People just do not understand how that is a problem and how it affects them.

For me the best thing in a democracy is the fact that is supposed to have some dynamics. I am more afraid of a fixed set of people taking continuously worse and worse decisions. Many dictatorships started with the dictators managing fine the country, and people being fine to give them more and more power. Then, in something like 10 or 20 years things go to shit, but there is no "mechanism" to replace them.

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