Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by aleph_minus_one » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #458

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you suggesting launching into deep conversation when you meet someone? I am strongly suggesting not to start with shallow smalltalk, as it is common in the USA. I would start with serious conversations when I meet someone to get a feeling. But if the "vibe" is right, you can indeed get deep rather soon.

It's very strange to see you simultaneously say that that friendships take longer to develop but also that I'm supposed to avoid shallow talk the entire time even when my friendship is very shallow. Especially since it's usually Americans that have the reputation for treating strangers overly familiar in conversation.

> It's very strange to see you simultaneously say that that friendships take longer to develop but also that I'm supposed to avoid shallow talk the entire time even when my friendship is very shallow.

I don't get your point:

- Avoiding shallow talking means not wasting the other person's time - this is politeness.

- You can also talk about deep topics with people who are outside of your friendzone.

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

#472

Post by djaro » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

mmarq wrote: post #281

froh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no certificate higher than C2, so "minimum" C2 is ridicerlus, ackchyually... I assume.thats your point here, but to bystanders: C2 is nearly native speaker language proficiency, nuanced, precise, eloquent. if language production is the job, or impeccable understanding is a must have, like as a psychotherapist, then C2 is a reasonable requirement. in contrast you can study in german language at a German unive…

C2 is better than the language proficiency of the median native speaker. A C2 speaker is comparable to a highly educated native speaker with a master degree who reads regularly.

If a native speaker didn't pass a C2 exam, it's not because they don't understand the language well enough, it's because they are bad at reading/writing as a skill and might make e.g. spelling mistakes.

Any native speaker will still be far beyond C2 when it comes to intuitively understanding a language and using it. No native speaker will ever fail the oral part of a C2 exam, unless they have to talk about a topic they don't know, which would be a case of a lack of knowledge, not a lack of language proficiency.

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

#473

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:07 AM UTC

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #413

littlecranky67 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a german living in spain, i feel your pain. While I do speak spanish around B1/B2 level, it took a lot of time and effort - probably the biggest effort in learning something after uni. People are often "you should speak the language if you life there" - yes, agreed. BUT: Hell, if you are a professional entrepreneur, you are already not working 40h week but way more. If in your day job you speak english anyway beca…

None of this people opining “just learn the language” have learned a second language while working as adults, let alone learned German. You can get to A2 level pretty easy (in most indoeuropean languages at least), but jumping to B1 can seriously be a year or more of studying. You have to be able to handle basic daily situations in the given language and understand what is said in a TV or Radio show. With practice yo…

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

#474

Post by prodmod » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:13 AM UTC

My partner and I went to Germany and then left. We found that while they are desperate for skilled labor, they do essentially nothing to accommodate once people have come. Every step of the immigration process felt like another grift. Our Auslanderbörde appointment was borderline hostile, and our lawyer was a certified buffoon. Then daily life was beset with petty corruption. We couldn’t get an appointment at the burgeramt to register until we paid a fixer to go in on our behalf. Germany was full of petty annoyances and indignities that made it clear they want immigrants, but will not put in the effort to retain them. The U.S. is lately no friend to even skilled immigrants, but public government services are at least available in most major European and Asian languages. Go to the Netherlands instead. That’s what we would have done, if we had it to do over again.

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

#475

Post by romanhounds » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:15 AM UTC

prodmod wrote: post #474

My partner and I went to Germany and then left. We found that while they are desperate for skilled labor, they do essentially nothing to accommodate once people have come. Every step of the immigration process felt like another grift. Our Auslanderbörde appointment was borderline hostile, and our lawyer was a certified buffoon. Then daily life was beset with petty corruption. We couldn’t get an appointment at the bur…

you could try China? I hear they are famously enlightened when it comes to people immigrating, becoming citizens, etc.

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

#476

Post by persedes » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:15 AM UTC

rdbl27 wrote: post #410

g8oz wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE agents are arresting people when they show up for green card interviews.

ICE agents arrest _people who committed crimes_ at green card interviews (including "entering the country illegally," which is a crime.) As I said, the United States is very welcoming to foreigners who are willing to follow the laws.

Eh it's not as black and white as you make it look. Colleague of mine is in ICE detention, because ICE acted on courts being held up in appeals so they can ignore his ongoing asylum case and deport him back to Russia. He followed the rules, had a work permit and everything, but did not matter in the end.

The green card interview snatching is also messed up, if your existing visa expired, while you were being processed, USCIS was understanding and it did not affect your application. (Processing time is slow, so that can happen). Now it's if your visa ever expires your Freiwild for ICE. They're technically not wrong with this, but they're essentially throwing the book at people getting a visum legally too.

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

#477

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:16 AM UTC

blks wrote: post #423

jitix wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why are you complaining about the language requirement for permanent residency? You knew the tradeoffs and chose them willingly, enjoy your income, invest in your home country and move back once you retire. Simply making higher-than-median income should not make you eligible for permanent residency. Cultural immersion and assimilation is important to maintain social stability and language is just the first step.…

Why do you want people with foreign backgrounds to “assimilate”? If you were to move to France, are you going to abandon your own language, culture, and play-pretend to be a Frenchman? If you live somewhere long enough, know the country, work and handle daily life without issues, have social connections with other people in this society, understand at least some language - in my opinion you are as integrated in that…

You're making it sound like the desire to be a Frenchman is an unreasonable requirement for becoming a Frenchman.

> abandon your own language, culture

Thank god nobody is asking this. They're being asked to learn enough French to participate in France. B1 is hard, but it ain't B2, and you'll still barely understand what's going on around you.

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

#478

Post by kshacker » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:18 AM UTC

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…

> (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it ....

sorry to nitpick on this, but the story did not expand on this despite the pronouncement that there is a reason. Maybe it was subtle, but then let it be subtle.

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

#479

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:19 AM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #245

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.

> she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one As a native German, I actually have difficulties with concepts like "identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]" or "naturalization". I really would say these are concepts that US-Americans (or people who were "shaped" by US mentality) seem to deeply care about, but Germans very typically don't. So, my opinion/advice is: s…

[deleted]

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

#480

Post by hunterpayne » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:21 AM UTC

bulbar wrote: post #190

throwawaypath wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on. Any minute now those millions of doctors, lawyers, and engineers from the MENA countries that flooded Germany the past decade will fix all that! Any minute!

That perspective is weird as foreign health care workers right now are the only thing that keep the health care sector from collapsing.

I don't think that is really true. I think what's true is that people like private nursing care but its really expensive. Its less expensive if you have a large influx of cheap labor.