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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

#541

Post by dbetteridge »

moomoo11 wrote: post #531
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

nah. i speak english and have zero interest in learning another language. english is the best language for business and everything else.

Then don't move to a country that has another language as a requirement?

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

#543

Post by bulbar »

wrqvrwvq wrote: post #483
bulbar wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think you talking about refugees, not regular migration.

People who migrate need to deposit thousands of Euros, at least when they come for training in health care sector (nurse or doctor). You can also come if you have an offer from a German company or a very good outlook to get one. In any case, you are not allowed to stay if you don't work for a longer period of time.

I can't believe how many don't know about this even here.

It's basically relatively easy to stay here as a refugee, but not as easy to stay here as a skilled worker.

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

#544

Post by bryanrasmussen »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #497
14u2c wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bo…

>everyone under the age of 50 speaks good English and switched to that as soon as my first badly-conjugated sentence left my mouth.

OK maybe things have changed in recent years. I was always annoyed when coming to visit family living in Berlin for a couple days or driving in to a conference, and inevitably there would come a time when I would have to ask someone for help and I would have to ask in English because I do not speak German (although due to youthful immersion I start to remember it again after a couple of weeks) and they would inevitably answer in German.

I could somewhat understand when we stopped in a park asking where the convention center was of just a couple people by the side of the road, but asking a ticket agent at a train station what route I should take to get to a particular station and getting replies in German seemed especially rude.

At any rate despite some good experiences with Germans regarding helpfulness I have had a few too many negative experiences.

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

#545

Post by bulbar »

hunterpayne wrote: post #480
bulbar wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The shortage of workers in the health care sector is well established, just look at some numbers. As my wife works in health care sector, I also know that from own experience. Here colleagues and friends are mostly from within EU but also outside EU. A friend of mine from Syria just completed her training to become a neurologist. Another just finished training to become a nurse. She nearly had to move out of the country because she was on a "training visa" but finished it an wanted to start working. They wanted her to move out of Germany to apply for a work visa.

It's pure insanity. Meanwhile, many people think regular migration and coming as refugee is basically the same thing and that we don't need skilled worker to begin with. Maybe we deserve to become insignificant, but I would rather from some distance.

Of all places I never imagined finding so many AfD talking points here on HN. Trying to migrate to another country right now, because I see a grim future coming with the direction the society is going. Reading here strongly confirms my reasoning for that.

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

#546

Post by kdheiwns »

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 an American, to me it's always felt like non-white Americans are never really accepted as "full" Americans by people as a whole. If a German guy moves to America and gets citizenship, he might be known as that German American guy, sure. But if he has kids, they'll just be called American. Over 100 years ago, some Chinese people moved to America. Those people had kids. Those kids had kids. Those kids had kids. Some of those kids also had kids. But what are those 5th or 6th generation Americans called? Asian Americans or even Chinese Americans, even if they've never been outside of the US and nobody in their family several generations up the line has either. And people who were forcefully brought to America 300 years ago still have their descendants being called "African American" instead of simply "American."

I say this as someone who myself emigrated from America. Nobody calls me "that American guy." I'm just "that guy".

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

#547

Post by AdamN »

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…

German culture is thorough, not efficient.

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

#548

Post by hollerith »

pessimizer wrote: post #508
eldaisfish wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In sharp contrast to this are the US and Canada, where there is no shared definition of "white" even though the majority of their populations are ethnically European. I think you've got this turned around. In the US and Canada "white" is all you have. In Germany you have Germans, in France you have French, in the US, you have "white," which usually means "untraceable white mutt, at least one grandparent didn't spea…

I've been living in the US for over 60 years and don't recognize the country you are describing.

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

#549

Post by dr_hooo »

torginus wrote: post #433
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…

I think what she meant that even if you live in Germany/work with German colleagues, basically you will enternally made to be felt that you are not one of them by all but the most liberally minded Germans (and even those are rare even in the big international cities). So your friend group (if you decide to have one, rather than concentrate on family), will consist of other expats/immigrants. Btw most Europeans are li…

> If you speak decent enough ~~English~~ German, then basically if you get along, they forget about where you come from.

This has been my exact experience in Germany though.

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