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

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

#811

Post by juliusceasar » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:29 PM 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…

"So first things first: regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here."

You should look the other way around. The country is contributing to YOU. You are profitting from Germany.

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

#812

Post by throwaway27448 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #712

throwaway27448 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't contradict what I'm saying. They aren't going to do anything that might depress the economy—it's just a sufficient cruelty to satisfy their base.

They closed the strait of Hormuz

Sure but that will crash the whole world's economy. Relatively speaking it's not a problem for us.

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

#813

Post by snovymgodym » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:59 PM 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.

Yeah, those are different people than the ones who arrived en masse during the "refugees welcome" phase.

The healthcare workers are overwhelmingly people who migrated legally through the proper channels.

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

#814

Post by mamonster » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

FabCH wrote: post #372

hparadiz wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was a regular thing for Americans or anyone in the world to be able to make a Swiss account? Is that not the case? Or is it different if you live there?

If you are not a resident, don’t bother trying unless you plan to have 30M or more in the account. If you are a resident, you can easily open a normal account in minutes… unless you are US, Russian or Belarus citizen.

>If you are not a resident, don’t bother trying unless you plan to have 30M or more in the account.

If you are UHNW every single bank, from private(Pictet etc) to universal, will bend over to have you. For US accounts it depends heavily on what you want to do with it. If it is just to keep your money and do investments by yourself 500k will be more than enough. It will be expensive in terms of trading fees/money transfer fees/ etc versus neobanks but that's the way it is.

The issues come if you want a wealth advisor. There are not that many wealth advisors with an SEC license (required to manage US clients) and most of them simply won't assume the risk unless they can have 1.5mio USD to manage, with something like 0.6% - 0.8% management fees p.a. Below 500k forget it because then you are categorised a private client according to FINMA and it is a pain in the ass compliance wise.

>If you are a resident, you can easily open a normal account in minutes

Depends which bank. Cantonal Bank have fun.

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

#815

Post by snovymgodym » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

bulbar wrote: post #191

_zoltan_ wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was such a self inflicted wound that Europe, and Germany, did to itself. No wonder people are voting AfD. and for the downvoters: these are facts. this is what the politician in Europe campaigned with, built platforms on and said for everything. "We'll get engineers, and doctors! Lots of workers!" Fast forward 5 years... How's the Willkommenkultur going you ask? Look at AfD. Look recently at the 10 million Switz…

You talking about refugees or migration? That's two totally different things. Germany is in desperate need of migration and yes, the people that come are skilled workers. Refugees is a completely different topic.

I'm going to assume that you're not being intentionally obtuse, so I'll clarify what people are saying.

Germany didn't and still does not have meaningful immigration enforcement. For fairly understandable reasons, German asylum law is quite permissive. You get benefits from the government (read, from the German taxpayer) as soon as you submit an asylum claim even if it ultimately gets denied. Processing an asylum claim takes a long time, and there are many ways to delay it. It is very hard to get deported by force from Germany.

The net effect of this was that a huge number of young men who were essentially economic migrants came to Germany in the last 15 years on dubious asylum claims by misrepresenting their age, their national origin, the situations in their home country, and so on. A lot of these people are perpetually unemployed, not only due to the complicated nature of getting work permission as an asylum seeker, but also because they lack the language and professional skills to work the in-demand jobs in Germany, and because, well they continue to get government benefits.

This is on top of the fact that the German social support system is already strained from age demographics, and that large groups of young men who come from misogynistic/chauvinistic societies and are perpetually unemployed behave rather predictably.

In addition, by allowing this abuse of the system, the skilled legal migrants also suffer as they are heavily taxed to subsidize non-working "asylum seekers" and growing anti-migration/anti-foreign sentiment gets directed to them as well.

So in conclusion, refugees and migration are not "totally different things". In fact, in the case of Germany they are two deeply intwined topics that cannot just be dealt with in isolation.

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

#816

Post by simianwords » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

customguy wrote: post #800

simianwords wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But like... no one claims there's some essentialist and typological race. Everyone knows that it is lossy but a real category. Whom are you attacking here? Any educated person knows that there's no one to one mapping between DNA and how the word "Asian" is used. There's a good predictive power for DNA and a high correlation. But that's how language works. Between a "hill" and a "mountain", there's no concrete boundar…

There is one human race, you can divide them in groups by whatever markers you want, doesn't make it a race. "Tall people" is no more a race than "white people" is. > I think this is what you have done: you want to signal that you are against racism. To whom? If you had any idea the spats I got into (let's say with "liberals", as a shorthand) because I heard and understood Body Count before they were even born, and s…

You can’t solve racism by playing semantic games and claiming race as a concept itself doesn’t exist. There’s not just a single human race just like there’s no one colour. There’s beauty in our differences.

It doesn’t make you more moral to collapse the white and black race into one.

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

#817

Post by merb » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #498

merb wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Any specific examples?

well how should I do that? Basically all application data is basically protected data and needs to be deleted pretty fast.

I'm not sure if the certificates are even real in some cases. Some applications also look extremly similar, besides that they have a distance between the two applicatiants of over 200 km.

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

#818

Post by oblio » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #775

oblio wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, how many CEOs of major German companies are non-German? A quick headcount says Mercedes, Adidas, Bayer,... https://www.consultancy.eu/news/1605/one-third-of-executives... It pays off to do the actual research before passing judgment.

CEO of Mercedes was born in Sweden to Swedish parents; has blue eyes. CEO of Adidas has a Norwegian father and grew up in Norway; has pale skin, reddish-blonde hair and blue eyes. CEO of Bayer was born and raised in the US. Last name is "Anderson". Has pale skin and blue eyes. Two of them could pass as German (at least until they started talking): most Norwegians don't really look like Germans and the CEO of Adidas i…

Why does every country in the world have to look like the US?

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

#819

Post by hparadiz » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

FabCH wrote: post #802

Laurel1234 wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've opened (and used) a Dukascopy account with neither a Swiss passport nor even setting foot in Switzerland. And I can vouch I had significantly less than 30M haha.

It’s a very expensive bank. Compared to a normal Swiss bank: CHF wire transfer and EUR SEPA wire transfers are usually free of charge. Dukascopy charges 2.30 for each CHF or EUR transfer and 19 USD for each USD wire, on top of 0.50% currency conversion. And, their FAQ clearly states they don’t accept US citizens.

That's not very expensive for a lot of tech workers in the United States. That's why I'm asking so casually. Half a percent for currency conversion is quite cheap.

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

#820

Post by mft_ » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

customguy wrote: post #803

mft_ wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be completely missing (or avoiding?) the point. It is widely recognised that Germany is one of the most at-risk countries in the world regarding its aging population, low birth-rate, and need for skilled workers for its economy. If one performs a SWOT analysis of Germany from the perspective of a potential skilled immigrant, alongside the undoubted strengths, there are relative weaknesses - e.g. high taxe…

> you're literally saying you'd rather have your country fail, fall apart, die, than get over your hurt feelings about people not wanting to speak the language fluently. "hurt feelings"? I started out mentioning to someone who I assume gets where I'm coming from, because they are not acting entitled and do not find Germans to be unwelcoming, that I don't respect Germans who don't learn the language of countries they…

> If you want to make me responsible for the fate of Germany, make me chancellor, or get off my back.

Suggesting that you’re not responsible for your opinions because you don’t have the ultimate power to change the country? Don’t be childish. Maybe if you can’t cope with being disagreed with, stop posting opinions on internet forums?

> What more should I do? Berate other Germans to be "less racist" or "more accepting" until people who simply just might by entitled assholes stop being that? Nah. Over it.

Well, you could be the change you want to see? Part of the problem that others are diagnosing in Germany is the attitude of some Germans; and you’re part of that group, no? Accepting this would be a small step forwards.

> And do you notice how it's just normal to talk shit about Germans and Germany, but when Germans speak _their_ mind, and say hey wait a second, that's rude, and it would be rude if we did that, too -- that's worth nothing? You wouldn't like to be treated that way.

For my part, you’re welcome to speak your mind, but that’s not really the issue. The previous poster and I have both given you evidence-based positions on specific weaknesses that Germany has, and suggested that the government and ultimately the people might want to address them for their own benefit. If you can’t see well-meaning, informed, constructive criticism being anything other than people “talking shit about Germans and Germany”, then… eh… there’s not really any point to discussing further.

(And you’ve still avoided addressing the well-meaning, informed, constructive criticisms.)