Germany is literally disappearing as a nation (too low a replacement rate and other problems). Pretty awful situation. Here's Peter Zeihan's assessment of Germany's future (or lack thereof):
Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
491–500 of 891 posts
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#492Earlier 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.
It shouldn't be annoying when somebody politely and indirectly asks you to stop calling kidnapped slaves "immigrants."
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where do the German coders go though?
> Where do the German coders go though? Currently the market for software developers is very complicated in Germany. Basically, the answer is: if you have a job, you stay there (at least until hopefully in a few years the job market situation for software developers in Germany improves).
It's much the same in other countries.
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#494Earlier 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.
It shouldn't be annoying when somebody politely and indirectly asks you to stop calling kidnapped slaves "immigrants."
But that's not what they did, they acted like people were already using that definition and started pulling out the wrong numbers.
Also can you explain why "involuntary migrant" is fine but "involuntary immigrant" isn't? (I mean I'd probably default to stronger language than "involuntary" but let's stick with that for now.)
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument ignores one important aspect - incentives. English is the global lingua franca, hence the incentive to learn English is incredibly strong. Outside of Germany, what exact benefit does the German language get you?
> Outside of Germany, what exact benefit does the German language get you? German is also official language in Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg. In many neighbouring countries it is also often well-understood and/or there exist language minorities. > English is the global lingua franca From my professional experience I can tell that depending on the countries or persons from countries that you deal with, Spanish,…
"So, calling English the global lingua franca is in my opinion rather based on a selection bias on specific countries."
In software, if you don't speak English, you don't really exist. Same for pilots and some other industries. Spanish programmers will need to learn English even for jobs in Spain. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#496I‘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…
Had to transfer through FRA once, never doing that again. The passport control line was Mr Beast Hunger Battle Royale Games.
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. It actually can be a problem because most people switch to English as soon as they realize your are not a native speaker, which can make learning harder.
This was my experience. I lived for almost four years in Berlin, and was trying to learn German (I got to A2, which isn't much). But actually getting experience/immersion in German is difficult in Berlin - everyone under the age of 50 speaks good English and switched to that as soon as my first badly-conjugated sentence left my mouth.
I worked for two German companies while I was there, and the entire tech team in both companies did everything in English. This is normal there. In one of them, the (German) CEO gave a townhall speech to the entire company (~1000 employees) in English.
So yes, it's very understandable for the German government to say "you must be at least B1 to live here" but that doesn't recognise the fact that it is perfectly possible to actually live and work in Berlin with no German at all.
It's different in other German cities, apparently. If we'd moved to Munich or Cologne I would have had more pressure to learn German, and also more exposure to it and more immersion which would have helped learn it.
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get B1 with a bit of spare time. With kids, I understand it's a different situation; however, it took me about 2 years to get there, learning in my spare spare time (which after a certain point was just listening to audio books before bed). The compounding effect works. BUUUUT, even with B2, it's just not enough for avoiding "the look", as you put it. I think you need flawless C1 or something, idk. Don't care…
Most b2 holders can’t even speak German. B1 is not that much better nowadays. You get tons of applications for a job where people struggle with the basics with these and as a small company with only DACH customers it’s most often not worth it
> You get tons of applications for a job where people struggle with the basics with these
Any specific examples?
I'm a bit surprised because I thought that the German certifications were quite standardized. So I would expect B1 certified people to be able to speak in everyday situations.
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It seems weird to me that someone would even want to settle in a foreign country without a good understanding of the language and cultural basics These people typically call themselves "expatriates"
There's also supposed to be a distinction about intent to leave in a relatively short predetermined time period. I consider myself an expat in New Zealand, because I'm on a ~2 year visa that cannot be extended, and I have no particular intent to try to transfer to a different visa. If I'd been here the same amount of time, in the same job, but on a straight to residency visa I intended to convert to PR/Citizenship, I…
I agree with you, but some don't; I lived in Cambodia for a while, and there were/are "ex-pats" living there with Khmer wives and children, who speak perfect Khmer, work in Cambodian companies, have been there for 20+ years, and still refer to themselves as "ex-pats".
But I think this is might be cultural about the host country. Cambodia is blatantly racist, "Cambodia is for the Khmer people" is a thing there. Any non-Khmer immigrant will never be considered Cambodian, always a "barang"(foreigner) no matter how long they live there. This isn't true of NZ, who would happily consider you a Kiwi if you got the citizenship and lived there for a while, no matter your race or origin country.
Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Outside of Germany, what exact benefit does the German language get you? German is also official language in Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg. In many neighbouring countries it is also often well-understood and/or there exist language minorities. > English is the global lingua franca From my professional experience I can tell that depending on the countries or persons from countries that you deal with, Spanish,…
"So, calling English the global lingua franca is in my opinion rather based on a selection bias on specific countries." In software, if you don't speak English, you don't really exist. Same for pilots and some other industries. Spanish programmers will need to learn English even for jobs in Spain. I have no idea what you are talking about.
> In software, if you don't speak English, you don't really exist. Same for pilots and some other industries. Spanish programmers will need to learn English even for jobs in Spain. I have no idea what you are talking about.
I know from programmers from Russia that in this country, you can pretty much do software development without knowing any English, Russian suffices (to the surprise of programmers from other countries). This is also why it cannot taken for granted that a programmer who comes from Russia knows English (at least more than minimal, shallow knowledge from school).
I heard similar things about programmers in China.