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

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

#851

Post by marcus_holmes » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 1:16 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #616

marcus_holmes wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to think about this. I don't think it's wealth that's the differentiator. I think it's partly colonialism and partly culture. > If Cambodia had a GDP per capita similar to Japan/Korea/Taiwan, they would "suddenly" become less racist Japan is also, famously, extremely racist. Probably to the same extent that Cambodia is, but I haven't been there so I can't compare. Colonialism has a lot to answer for in SE Asia.…

> Japan is also, famously, extremely racist. I replied about this below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48828355 > I don't think it's wealth that's the differentiator. I think it's partly colonialism and partly culture. I think it is political/social issue. What really drives the fall in racism is politicians/community leaders/school officials talking about it. They observe it, then speak out against it. When a…

> Why do almost all countries that get rich also get more democratic and more liberal on social issues? I don't know, but I see it nearly universally in many different countries.

Agree.

Like I said, I've never been to Japan, can't comment on it, I'm only repeating what I've heard. I'm glad that's changing.

Thailand is a little different, yes. I wasn't there for as long, and was mainly only a tourist there, so no expert. But I never heard "Thailand is for the Thai people" while I was there. The cultural racism is similar, but they haven't had Cambodia's historical suffering as a background.

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

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Post by jadtz » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC

helge9210 wrote: post #207

cloudie78 wrote: post #155

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What has kept you from achieving C2, you’ve been there for 10y+

C1 can be achieved (I did it on 360 hours). C2 is academic level of language proficiency -- you have to either deliberately study for the difficult exam or get an university degree in German. Most of the Germans won't be able to pass a C2 test. When a company sets C2 as a requirement, it can be interpreted as "must have a degree from German University".

Hi, I am interested in language learning, and your first sentence caught my attention. I am currently learning german, do you have a blog post on your journey of learning a language in 360 hours? around 45 days if 8 hours per day. How were you able to achieve so much with so little time?

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

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Post by bulbar » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 4:42 AM UTC

stnikolauswagne wrote: post #825

bulbar wrote: post #552

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That's basically why you should learn the language of the country you live in. Blaming people for not speaking English in Germany is pretty weird. How about learning German instead?

I speak german as a mothertongue and fluent english, and I had massive troubles communicating in my own home.

I see, that wasn't clear to me from what you wrote.

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

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Post by bulbar » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 4:46 AM UTC

snovymgodym wrote: post #815

bulbar wrote: post #191

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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 cla…

It's two different topics in the sense that the process for skilled workers must be simplified so that they can come and stay easier. We also need those people as our society won't be sustainable otherwise.

The challenges with Asylum seekers are very different as you have pointed out.

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

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Post by exoverito » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:44 AM UTC

graemep wrote: post #723

exoverito wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's human nature to be "racist" since people generally prefer to be with others similar to themselves. That can be multi-dimensional, ranging from values, cultures, tastes, but race is the most obvious and one of the major principal components of human experience. Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are effectively ethnostates and they've not had the cultural enrichment yet that America or Europe has faced. Notably, there is r…

> people generally prefer to be with others similar to themselves. Similar how? Why skin colour rather than say eye colour? Why not similar language, culture, religion, politics...?

Race is not skin color. Albino Sub-Saharans are very obviously not European.

People of course prefer others that share their language, culture, religion and politics. Race is often highly correlated to those.

To ignore the dimension of genetics is to willfully blind yourself to reality.

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

#856

Post by atoav » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 6:31 AM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #595

marcus_holmes wrote: post #572

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Berliners are renowned even in Germany for being blunt to the point of rudeness. What we in the Anglosphere would consider rude, they consider efficient. It can be very off-putting at first, but you do get used to it.

in most other countries renowned for being efficient it would not be considered efficient to answer in a language the questioner evidently does not speak.

To play the devils advocate: It is efficient — for them.

It is a bit of a myth that everybody in Germany talks English. Sure in an academic or business environment, or in certain social circles that can be taken for granted, but there are people who can only talk German or whose English is so bad they will avoid talking it.

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

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Post by freehorse » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 8:08 AM UTC

FabCH wrote: post #715

freehorse wrote: post #665

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Are (native) citizens a net positive? Do you ask each one of them how they contribute culturally? What does "spiritually" and "emotionally" even mean in this context? People should be afforded basic rights because they are people. People who live long term in a place, do the same (or different for that matter but analogous) work etc should have the same basic rights. In this context I interpret "net positive" as basi…

First of all, _basic_ rights should be afforded to _all_ humans. That's not what the discussion here is. The discussion here are non-basic rights, like the right to enter a geographic area without restriction or the right to state welfare. You saying "job/role" is where the argument falls apart, because job and role are not the same. Yes, I absolutely agree that people who fulfill roles in society should be afforded…

> the right to enter a geographic area without restriction

No, the discussion was about the conditions of staying, not entering.

> the right to state welfare

If one pays the same taxes for several years why shouldn't they have access to the same state welfare?

> Refusing to fill those roles

Even assuming it is meaningful to set rules about stuff like that that are basic life stuff and most people do to some degree, how do you know or check for these? For once, language is def not a good proxy, esp in a place with a very big international community and where most speak english anyway. How do you imagine this? I have never seen a check like this that makes any sense. It is worse than even the economic checks where people move money from an account to another and screenshot them to show they are not too poor so that their applications are not rejected. If anything, immigrant communities ime are much higher in solidarity because they need to. And in any case, it is not either fair to punish a person for just being introvert or not having many friends or sth.

> high-income immigrant

No I did not mention high income, and imo it has nothing to do with this discussion. Maybe it was a misunderstanding with OP who mentioned "net positive". I interpreted "net positive" as working consistently rather than high income necessarily. I do not think people with high income should have more rights to PR than people with low income, though this is sadly the case in many ways.

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

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Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 8:22 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #794

freehorse wrote: post #509

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> requirement for becoming a Frenchman The discussion is about permanent residence, not citizenship. Permanent residence allows eg an employee be able to continue staying in a country without being dependent on a particular employer and having to reapply everytime they change jobs. It is gives a person who works in a country for a certain amount of time already, paying taxes etc, having the same rights as an employee…

You have to choose one way or another. Either you argue that the job requires you to stay in another country and the stay is always temporary and there you would not focus on any given language since you're going to leave before you reach any level of proficiency or you want to stay in the country because you like it and therefore learn the language. You cannot cherry pick the option where you have your cake and eat…

This argument makes sense if learning the language is the default and you require an excuse to get out of it. But I don't think that's true. If you don't want to learn, that's not a big deal. There's no cherry picking involved. Learning the language isn't inherently tied to working somewhere. It's tied to citizenship but this isn't citizenship.

In other words, yes it's illogical to argue that a stay is short and long at the same time but who declared that learning the language is an inherent part of long stays?

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

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Post by graemep » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 9:00 AM UTC

exoverito wrote: post #855

graemep wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people generally prefer to be with others similar to themselves. Similar how? Why skin colour rather than say eye colour? Why not similar language, culture, religion, politics...?

Race is not skin color. Albino Sub-Saharans are very obviously not European. People of course prefer others that share their language, culture, religion and politics. Race is often highly correlated to those. To ignore the dimension of genetics is to willfully blind yourself to reality.

What dimension of genetics? Race is not genetic. If you try to cluster people by genetic similarity the end result does not look like people's idea of "race" at all, and different (even closely related cultures like the UK and the US) have different classifications of race. http://pietersz.co.uk/2023/08/racism-culture-different

In the days of racial science (so up to the 1950s or so) some east Africans and South Asians were classified as "caucasian". Textbooks and encyclopedias from the time say so.

Race is not highly correlated to religion. Christianity is followed by numbers of Europeans, South Americans, Africans, and Asians. Islam by semitic, African, South Asian, South East Asian people. Buddhists are most commonly, South Asian, SE Asian or East Asian - still multiple different "races". The same with cultures. I do not see how race correlates to politics at all. There are weak correlations with culture and language, very weak within countries.

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

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Post by graemep » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 9:04 AM UTC

ralferoo wrote: post #840

graemep wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "supposed" is the key word there. Lots of people live somewhere for decades and still call themselves, and are called, expats.

And they are correct according to the meaning of the word. Expats simply means someone who resides outside of their native country. I guess colloquially it probably implies moving somewhere as an adult, but the word itself doesn't carry that meaning (it's literally ex=outside + patris=homeland). But for instance, my sister has lived permanently in New Zealand for 25 years now (and a few years prior to her permanent m…

That is the original definition, but then all immigrants are expats, and all expats are migrants. The words become synonyms. Then its become very interesting to ask why people prefer one word over the other for particular groups of people.