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Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

ft.com

71–80 of 140 posts

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#71
post #20
post #9

The article is low quality. It talks a bit about the problem, not about the cause and it does not help anyone. The example at the beginning seems to be a now classic "I have a degree in an area where supply greatly exceeds demand". There is demand, there is supply, but there is a misalignment of qualifications and interests. If "well-qualified people" means fresh graduates in domains with low demand, then the qualifi…

And what happens with high demand and low supply? Strangely the wages don’t rise as one would expect. And companies are picky, they want a perfect fit for their position including the work processes and programs. Delusional.

Are you sure the wages don't rise in high demand, low supply areas? We all just read the 7 figure salaries for people in AI stolen from one big company to another, what is that?

Yes, companies are picky, but it is slowly changing. They cannot afford to be picky anymore, but change takes time.

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who are these people?

Indians. Well educated, hard working, and willing to put in 20 years of serfdom to get that green card. Even a 30% discount on wages is still a better quality of life than their alternatives. If they were granted proper work visas with portability then wages would go up. That's why Elon and co love H1Bs.

You’re not talking about Germany then… that’s not at all the German situation

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#74
post #53
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Migrants to Germany account for 30.2% of the total population. Is Germany not enough diverse for you? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany

Yes, sorry, there is a lot of diversity of course, especially on the lower level. It's rather equality and inclusion that need improving. It's an anecdotal evidence, but while looking for a job I liked looking up employees on linkedin, then looking up the leadership on company's website. First one would always be much more diverse than the second one

You didn't notice older people are Germans and younger migrants?

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#76
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Cut all welfare and government handouts, cut taxes on labor and on employment. Eastern Europe has the former, and as for the latter entrepreneurs in the industry just don't pay their taxes - ask me how I know. There's still a shortage.

I live in Romania and we have high taxes on labor (but very low for journalists, so they are happy) and we have labor shortage in some areas - in my grandparent's village it because a lot of young people are working in Germany and also because people don't have kids. But we have places where 1/3 of the inhabitants live on welfare and that is less than 100 km away, also in rural area.

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#77
post #3

Jokes on FT, we have both

I am not so sure we really have or had both. Maybe for roles like electrician and tiler and such. But for roles like teachers, I feel it is not the case, or policy makers are extremely stupid here. The hurdles for someone to become a teacher without having studied that are still very high. It doesn't seem like policies a nation would implement, if they really wanted more teachers. For example you need to have 500h of…

Berlin has recently solved teacher shortage by cutting positions. Saxony pushes for stripping teachers of a privileged civil servant status, because who needs teachers when we don't have children anyway. I don't think Germany has a shortage here really, especially as birth rates are falling even further

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#78
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens with high demand and low supply? Strangely the wages don’t rise as one would expect. And companies are picky, they want a perfect fit for their position including the work processes and programs. Delusional.

Are you sure the wages don't rise in high demand, low supply areas? We all just read the 7 figure salaries for people in AI stolen from one big company to another, what is that? Yes, companies are picky, but it is slowly changing. They cannot afford to be picky anymore, but change takes time.

Health care and construction have high demand but the wages raises aren’t that high, sometimes even lower than inflation

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#79
post #13
post #9

The article is low quality. It talks a bit about the problem, not about the cause and it does not help anyone. The example at the beginning seems to be a now classic "I have a degree in an area where supply greatly exceeds demand". There is demand, there is supply, but there is a misalignment of qualifications and interests. If "well-qualified people" means fresh graduates in domains with low demand, then the qualifi…

I come from Eastern Europe. Teachers used to tell us that we had to go to university if we wanted to have an easier life later on.

Same for me; but what they did not tell, because it was not needed at that time, is that not everyone is capable of going to an university, the admission was tough and the school was hard, so people were filtered by capabilities. 20 years later universities doubled the number of students as they made it a business first, not education first, so we got too many people with worthless diploma and no qualifications and no potential.

Re: Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes

#80
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno man, people are complaining about not being able to secure a vocational training position, especially as a foreigner. Maybe a bit of diversity and equality could help

A friend of mine went to Berlin to learn German. She's Spanish of Moroccan Berber origin... She said she encountered barely any native speakers, and many people tried to speak English to her instead. She ended up quitting as a result. I was in part of suburban Frankfurt am Main and had a similar experience. So depending on where you are, there is plenty of diversity. Like most larger European cities, Frankfurt and Be…

Berlin and Frankfurt are the most international places in Germany. It’s like going to Zurich and Geneva and saying that people speak English. If you step outside of those 2 places you will face german more often.

Though I really doubt your anecdotes, I lived in Berlin for years as a non-German speaker, you have a lot of native speakers all around, you often do not notice when you’re not integrated but once you start following native Germans they bring you to groups and places where the language is way more common.

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