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> Germans have accepted lower wages for general full-employment and job security even in times of recession. They haven't really, they ended up giving up more

> Germans have accepted lower wages for general full-employment and job security even in times of recession. They haven't really, they ended up giving up more and more job-security, with stagnating wages, to keep the sham of "full employment" going. Something that's been especially affecting West Germany since reunification, where previously wages were extremely high. But contrary to popular belief, even in Germany the labor markets were quite "liberalized" over these last couple of decades [0]. Nowadays plenty of low/middle-class Germans having to work two part-time jobs and still receiving government assistance, or unemployed people getting "loaned out" by the Arbeitsagentur to private companies as cheap 1€ labor force [1]. With programs like those, it's not very difficult to make your employment statistics look amazing: On paper barely anybody is actually unemployed because in reality most of them are "hidden away" in pointless training programs or straight up subsidizing the labor costs of private companies. [0] https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.567683.de/diw_sp0936.pdf https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.56768... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_opportunities_with_additional_expenses_compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_opportunities_with_add...

Barrin92 7y ago
yes, the hartz reforms have liberalised the very low-end of the labour market, but it seems like a mis-characterisation to declare the German model dead as a result. If you pick up a vocational training path in Germany and you get hired by a large company, you're still in a very, very stable employment relationship. Germany's middle-class relatively speaking to many other countries is still fairly intact which is reflected in the low priority that class issues or employment has in German politics. Not many people in Germany fall into the 1$ job market, and it should be pointed out that (IIRC) as time went on the majority of part-time jobs has converted into full-time employment.
- freeflight 7y ago
  > Germany's middle-class relatively speaking to many other countries is still fairly intact which is reflected in the low priority that class issues or employment has in German politics. Employment is pretty much one of the main topics of German politics. High employment needs to be presented even if those employed can't even live from that income. While the low-income issue has been ignored with "Be glad you got at least some work!". As German culture is very quick and harsh to shame people for not working a job. Which has been one of the factors the AfD played on: Many low and mid-income Germans feel like they've been missing out, the German right has pitted that feeling against the arriving refugees in a "We don't have money for German pensioners [0], but we do for Syrian economic migrants?!" way. As such I never declared the German model as dead, I was merely pointing out that it ain't as perfect as many people from the outside often perceive it to be. There's a whole lot of shining up the numbers going on, not just in terms of "who counts as unemployed", but even with "who counts as poor/low income". [1] [0] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-02/altersarmut-rente-armutsgefaehrung-statistik-pensinaere https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-02/altersarmut-rente-arm... [1] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbericht-der-bundesregierung-wer-arm.1005.de.html?dram:article_id=383639 https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbe...

Barrin92 7y ago

yes, the hartz reforms have liberalised the very low-end of the labour market, but it seems like a mis-characterisation to declare the German model dead as a result. If you pick up a vocational training path in Germany and you get hired by a large company, you're still in a very, very stable employment relationship. Germany's middle-class relatively speaking to many other countries is still fairly intact which is reflected in the low priority that class issues or employment has in German politics. Not many people in Germany fall into the 1$ job market, and it should be pointed out that (IIRC) as time went on the majority of part-time jobs has converted into full-time employment.

freeflight 7y ago
> Germany's middle-class relatively speaking to many other countries is still fairly intact which is reflected in the low priority that class issues or employment has in German politics. Employment is pretty much one of the main topics of German politics. High employment needs to be presented even if those employed can't even live from that income. While the low-income issue has been ignored with "Be glad you got at least some work!". As German culture is very quick and harsh to shame people for not working a job. Which has been one of the factors the AfD played on: Many low and mid-income Germans feel like they've been missing out, the German right has pitted that feeling against the arriving refugees in a "We don't have money for German pensioners [0], but we do for Syrian economic migrants?!" way. As such I never declared the German model as dead, I was merely pointing out that it ain't as perfect as many people from the outside often perceive it to be. There's a whole lot of shining up the numbers going on, not just in terms of "who counts as unemployed", but even with "who counts as poor/low income". [1] [0] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-02/altersarmut-rente-armutsgefaehrung-statistik-pensinaere https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-02/altersarmut-rente-arm... [1] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbericht-der-bundesregierung-wer-arm.1005.de.html?dram:article_id=383639 https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbe...