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

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

#481

Post by mangodrunk » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

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.

Why don’t people migrate to developing countries instead to help them directly. This form of migration makes it appear that Western countries are better.

There is a big problem with mass migration and people entering a country with antithetical values and beliefs.

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

#482

Post by baranul » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:26 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #438

baranul wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery and indigenous are not considered immigration. You might want to study again about this. Being multiracial, and of indigenous ancestry, does not necessarily mean or always count as immigrant. It is nebulous. No definitive conclusions, in regards to immigration, is made about those of mixed and indigenous ancestry. Speaking of mixed ancestry, the US has a very significant percentage in that category, from both…

I don't know what pedantic definition you're using, but the context was clearly about indigenous or not. Insisting on a definition from a completely different context doesn't make you right, it makes you annoying.

I see what you're saying, however, the terminology used (immigrant) and then percentages given, were debatably incorrect and misleading. Please refer to reading material, where it makes it clear that slavery is not immigration[1][2][3].

Immigrants go through a set immigration process, where they make a voluntary move to a new country. A huge portion of the American population were not immigrants, but were rather subject to involuntary migration (aka slavery), going as far back as 1526 (hundreds of years before the USA was created). Thus a better term would arguably be "migrants" (without distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary).

> And that is what binds them together... they all seperated from the old world... The us is a phyle of choice and you must have made that choice...

It is a false dichotomy or representation, that America is about those who are indigenous or not, or old world choice for the new.

[1]: https://lithub.com/dont-call-slaves-immigrants/ (Don't Call Slaves "Immigrants")

[2]: https://www.thewitnessinc.org/blog/african-slaves-not-immigr... (African Slaves Were Not 'Immigrants')

[3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/09/... (Slaves weren’t immigrants. They were property.)

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

#483

Post by wrqvrwvq » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:28 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.

An insane assumption when there are millions of immigrants in every european country lining up for every type of health care service and not contributing a cent back into it

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

#484

Post by betaby » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

djaro wrote: post #464

backwardsponcho wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised at the lengths some will go to avoid learning a new language. I've met people who have lived over 20y in a country while working, having and raising kids there and still can't have a half decent basic conversation in the local language. There is always an excuse: too much work, too little time, too tired or you name it, but the end result is that they are inconveniencing themselves. Not saying it i…

The thing that makes this illogical to me is that once you reach basic fluency, you stop needing to study since you will now be automatically improving your language skills every time you hold a conversation, read a newspaper, watch a television program, etc. It's genuinely just the relatively small initial hurdle towards ~B1 that is a slog, but after that, you never have to actively study again if you don't want to.

It doesn't feel like that for me. I reached professionally assessed B1 in French about 6 years ago and I don't feel I've reached B2 yet.

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

#485

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

baranul wrote: post #482

Dylan16807 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what pedantic definition you're using, but the context was clearly about indigenous or not. Insisting on a definition from a completely different context doesn't make you right, it makes you annoying.

I see what you're saying, however, the terminology used (immigrant) and then percentages given, were debatably incorrect and misleading. Please refer to reading material, where it makes it clear that slavery is not immigration[1][2][3]. Immigrants go through a set immigration process, where they make a voluntary move to a new country. A huge portion of the American population were not immigrants, but were rather subj…

The percentages were fine for what they were actually saying. We can have a healthy discussion about the 1.4% and 2.9% but bringing in voluntary versus involuntary migration is a totally different topic.

Also what's the point of making "immigrant" and "migrant" apply to different groups of people? This seems like the worst way to make the distinction.

Edit: This article has a pull quote of the definitions of 'immigrant' and 'slave' and both of them apply. This is not convincing.

Edit 2: You added "Slaves weren’t immigrants. They were property." The article isn't loading but I can respond to the title. Even by the logic of them not being people at the time of the slave trade, what, the idea is that when they became people again that resets their history and we act like they just appeared in the southern US? That seems far more disrespectful to me.

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

#486

Post by coderenegade » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:30 AM UTC

m_dupont wrote: post #437

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 lived in Germany for seven years and by the end I was fluent. B1 is a very low bar to pass, I know because I've done it. Sorry to say, but the rule is fair. If you want to be a permanent resident, put in a little bit of effort to integrate into the country that you would like to call home.

This. German really isn't that difficult for an English speaker. And if someone really wants to make a home and build a life in a foreign country, why would they expect that they don't need to learn the native language? That seems stunningly entitled to me.

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

#487

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:30 AM UTC

eldaisfish wrote: post #295

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

would you say that a swiss german and someone from Hamburg have more in common than someone from Bavaria and someone from Helsinki?

[deleted]

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

#488

Post by frollogaston » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:38 AM UTC

throwawaypath wrote: post #70

probably_wrong wrote: post #48

I migrated to Germany 10+ years ago and I'm still here. Based on my limited experience, there are two big issues. 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. If you're a fresh immigrant who cannot find a job in an economic crisis (aka "mo…

>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!

Funny thing is in the US, Mid East background (especially Iranian) is stereotyped as being doctors and lawyers, sometimes engineers. I know at least they disproportionately go into medicine.

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

#489

Post by carlosjobim » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:38 AM UTC

eldaisfish wrote: post #223

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…

There is yet another angle that people don't like to discuss because it is uncomfortable. Every European nation state is built around ethnicity as the bedrock of society. This makes it nigh on impossible to integrate fully in these countries. The way this manifests is different in each country, but the fundamental reason is the same. In the german case, take the words of Messut Ozil, the former footballer - when the…

Most natively born Europeans are never accepted as fully worthy members of their community either.

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

#490

Post by bayesianbot » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 1:42 AM UTC

xhevahir wrote: post #185

FinnLobsien wrote: post #178

I‘m German, but I no longer live in Germany, so I can’t relate to the experience of immigrating to Germany. I think a big part of the issue is a certain German presumptuousness. There’s a general sense that Germany is a prosperous, influential country. The reason for that must be that things are done correctly in Germany. I think this is an inherited attitude that doesn’t really correspond to reality anymore as syste…

I spent a day or so traveling through Germany with my parents a few weeks ago as part of a (much longer) trip and a common refrain during that day was, "So much for German efficiency." Frankfurt's airport was a tiring and frustrating experience, with long delays on the tarmac, at baggage claim, at the check-in counter, etc. One rest stop on the highway was half way dismantled, with restrooms filthy enough that everyb…

I come from Finland where (in my childhood) we used to say that education in Finland is the best in the world and there's really no racism or corruption.

I'm not gonna say the claims used to be true, but at least they used to be much closer to truth then than today. And I've long felt that having these kind of national beliefs can cause people/voters to neglect those things - e.g. all the bad claims about education can be just brushed off with "well we have the best education here so no worries!" - and few decades later they're not even close to true anymore.

Reminds me of a saying in poker, when many good players changed their style radically when playing against worse players and started playing way too bad starting hands (thinking they can just outplay them on the later betting rounds), something to the effect "It isn't enough that you know how to play better than your opponents, you have to actually do it"