6 ms·

Often the people who are willing to work long hours and lack formal qualifications are immigrants. Maybe there are not enough immigrants in your town? Or they w

Often the people who are willing to work long hours and lack formal qualifications are immigrants. Maybe there are not enough immigrants in your town? Or they would have needed to start as apprentices 5 years ago, and it's hard for them to get into the apprentice system?

umanwizard 6y ago
> lack formal qualifications Not sure about Germany, but there is a formal qualification for bakers in France.
mamon 6y ago
That's the paradox: Germany took in over 1.4 million "refugees" from Syria and North Africa (predominantly young, healthy males), and they still couldn't find ~20k temp workers to pick up asparagus this summer. They lamented how Polish people can't come anymore, due to COVID-19 lockdown. So no, it's definitely not the lack of immigrants, they are just wrong kind of immigrants, the too-lazy-to-work kind.
- Xylakant 6y ago
  > So no, it's definitely not the lack of immigrants, they are just wrong kind of immigrants, the too-lazy-to-work kind. Refugees are by law not allowed to work until they have a semi-permanent residence permit of any kind ("Duldung" would be sufficient in some, but not all cases). So yeah, they're all lazy and at fault here.
  - mamon 6y ago
    By what law? I'm pretty sure that at the same time Germany allowed them in they also adjusted their policies to make access to jobs easy for them (https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/Finding-their-Way-Germany.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/Finding-their-Way-Germany.pdf) German economy in general suffers from the lack of workers, which is the limiting factor for many businesses growth. If they could make a productive use of those "refugees" they surely would by now. They are not gatekeeping the job market.
    - Xylakant 6y ago
      Here's the rules and regulations: https://www.bmas.de/DE/Themen/Arbeitsmarkt/Infos-fuer-Asylsuchende/arbeitsmarktzugang-asylbewerber-geduldete.html https://www.bmas.de/DE/Themen/Arbeitsmarkt/Infos-fuer-Asylsu... TL;DR: At least 3 month in the best case, never in the worst case. Many cases require explicit permission from the authorities. Even if you're allowed to work before your application has been approved, you still face the problem that your refugee application might not be approved. Few employers will risk investing substantial amounts of education into a person with such a risky status. Once you have a permanent residence status things get easier. Generally, a major problem is that practically no education that refugees may have is recognized in Germany. So even if the person is a doctor, baker or whatever, even if they speak proper German, they're not permitted to work in the job that they're educated for - so even if there's a lack of qualified workers on one side and qualified workers on the other side, you'd still need to go through at least large chunks of the education. My wife who has a full teacher education from a neighboring european country (ECTS credits and all) still had to go back to university before being allowed to teach in Germany. There's also language barriers (obviously) It's also the case that in 2018 43% of the refugees had a job - that's certainly less than everyone would have wished for, but it's not as if all refugees are out of work. Since you cited the case of having to import foreign workers for field/harvest work: That's something that the farmers prefer. The imported workers are unorganized, often speak no German and have little to no knowledge of their rights. They're kept in containers under the farmers control. They're easy to exploit in ways that people with even the least bit of local support network are not. They'd not take natural Germans either if they applied.
- martopix 6y ago
  If you say something racist and prejudiced like that you need evidence that the problem here is that their unwillingness to work. Furthermore the idea (given by your use of quotes) that people coming from Syria during a civil war aren't refugees also requires a strong justification. Otherwise this message should not have a place here.
  - brippalcharrid 6y ago
    What gives you the impression that a majority of the people in question are even from Syria? Or Iraq? I think that's the reason for the skepticism-quotes.
Xylakant 6y ago
You need to have what's called "Meisterbrief" to run a bakery. That's the equivalent of having studied. You need 3 years of apprenticeship, then you make what's called "Gesellenprüfung", then you need to work at least 2 years in a bakery and then you need to go back to school for two years. That's quite some effort and it's not lacking formal qualifications. Also, running a bakery is a fairly capital-heavy investment. Friends of ours closed their bakery when the oven broke - it would have cost at least 50k to repair and that was the point they decided to retire (despite offers from many people in the street to chip in).
- 2trill2spill 6y ago
  From my perspective that seems heavily over regulated. As long as the bread is made in a sanitary fashion and doesn't make people sick, why should a baker be expected to go through so much training/schooling?
  - Xylakant 6y ago
    Meisterschule does not primarily teach you how to make bread. That’s the part before. It also teaches you how to educate new apprentices, how to run a business, etc. Maybe it’s over regulated, but on the other hand, we require solid education for a lot of professions. As long as the bridge doesn’t collapse, why should we expect an engineer to go through that much education? It’s only math and textbooks are freely available. As long as the patient survives, why do we require that doctors pass a certain education? It’s only biology and you can google most of it anyways.
    - earthboundkid 6y ago
      Watching doctors google stuff really makes you worry about the medical equivalent of StackOverflow code.
      - Xylakant 6y ago
        We all do google stuff. The part that requires training is knowing what to google for and how to interpret the results.
avhception 6y ago
> hard for them to get into the apprentice system? Speaking as a German, it's also a failure to integrate these people properly. The small bakery in my home town closed down, too. Immigrants are in no short supply, but there are a few factors that prevent them from taking on a venture like that: - They're generally forbidden to work until their formal immigration process has made enough progress in our bureaucracy, which can take years - They usually have no capital to pay for up-front expenses like buying the buildings and equipment - We segregate them from society by putting them in some sort of immigrant shelter while the bureaucracy does it's thing Especially the last point is rather bad I think, it leads to parallel societies that keep to themselves rather than integrating into the German society surrounding them. Most Muslim migrants would probably rather not operate a "German"-style bakery in the traditional sense. Our capability for integration is declining, too, because as a society we are becoming more and more estranged from our fellow citizens as community activities, especially in small towns and villages, dry up.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- razakel 6y ago
  It very much sounds as if you're confusing immigrants and refugees here.
  - jbarberu 6y ago
    I disagree. As an immigrant in America it sounds very much like my first 11 months here. Legal immigrant, unable to work while waiting for paperwork.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

umanwizard 6y ago

> lack formal qualifications Not sure about Germany, but there is a formal qualification for bakers in France.

mamon 6y ago

That's the paradox: Germany took in over 1.4 million "refugees" from Syria and North Africa (predominantly young, healthy males), and they still couldn't find ~20k temp workers to pick up asparagus this summer. They lamented how Polish people can't come anymore, due to COVID-19 lockdown. So no, it's definitely not the lack of immigrants, they are just wrong kind of immigrants, the too-lazy-to-work kind.

Xylakant 6y ago
> So no, it's definitely not the lack of immigrants, they are just wrong kind of immigrants, the too-lazy-to-work kind. Refugees are by law not allowed to work until they have a semi-permanent residence permit of any kind ("Duldung" would be sufficient in some, but not all cases). So yeah, they're all lazy and at fault here.
- mamon 6y ago
  By what law? I'm pretty sure that at the same time Germany allowed them in they also adjusted their policies to make access to jobs easy for them (https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/Finding-their-Way-Germany.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/Finding-their-Way-Germany.pdf) German economy in general suffers from the lack of workers, which is the limiting factor for many businesses growth. If they could make a productive use of those "refugees" they surely would by now. They are not gatekeeping the job market.
  - Xylakant 6y ago
    Here's the rules and regulations: https://www.bmas.de/DE/Themen/Arbeitsmarkt/Infos-fuer-Asylsuchende/arbeitsmarktzugang-asylbewerber-geduldete.html https://www.bmas.de/DE/Themen/Arbeitsmarkt/Infos-fuer-Asylsu... TL;DR: At least 3 month in the best case, never in the worst case. Many cases require explicit permission from the authorities. Even if you're allowed to work before your application has been approved, you still face the problem that your refugee application might not be approved. Few employers will risk investing substantial amounts of education into a person with such a risky status. Once you have a permanent residence status things get easier. Generally, a major problem is that practically no education that refugees may have is recognized in Germany. So even if the person is a doctor, baker or whatever, even if they speak proper German, they're not permitted to work in the job that they're educated for - so even if there's a lack of qualified workers on one side and qualified workers on the other side, you'd still need to go through at least large chunks of the education. My wife who has a full teacher education from a neighboring european country (ECTS credits and all) still had to go back to university before being allowed to teach in Germany. There's also language barriers (obviously) It's also the case that in 2018 43% of the refugees had a job - that's certainly less than everyone would have wished for, but it's not as if all refugees are out of work. Since you cited the case of having to import foreign workers for field/harvest work: That's something that the farmers prefer. The imported workers are unorganized, often speak no German and have little to no knowledge of their rights. They're kept in containers under the farmers control. They're easy to exploit in ways that people with even the least bit of local support network are not. They'd not take natural Germans either if they applied.
martopix 6y ago
If you say something racist and prejudiced like that you need evidence that the problem here is that their unwillingness to work. Furthermore the idea (given by your use of quotes) that people coming from Syria during a civil war aren't refugees also requires a strong justification. Otherwise this message should not have a place here.
- brippalcharrid 6y ago
  What gives you the impression that a majority of the people in question are even from Syria? Or Iraq? I think that's the reason for the skepticism-quotes.

Xylakant 6y ago

You need to have what's called "Meisterbrief" to run a bakery. That's the equivalent of having studied. You need 3 years of apprenticeship, then you make what's called "Gesellenprüfung", then you need to work at least 2 years in a bakery and then you need to go back to school for two years. That's quite some effort and it's not lacking formal qualifications. Also, running a bakery is a fairly capital-heavy investment. Friends of ours closed their bakery when the oven broke - it would have cost at least 50k to repair and that was the point they decided to retire (despite offers from many people in the street to chip in).

2trill2spill 6y ago
From my perspective that seems heavily over regulated. As long as the bread is made in a sanitary fashion and doesn't make people sick, why should a baker be expected to go through so much training/schooling?
- Xylakant 6y ago
  Meisterschule does not primarily teach you how to make bread. That’s the part before. It also teaches you how to educate new apprentices, how to run a business, etc. Maybe it’s over regulated, but on the other hand, we require solid education for a lot of professions. As long as the bridge doesn’t collapse, why should we expect an engineer to go through that much education? It’s only math and textbooks are freely available. As long as the patient survives, why do we require that doctors pass a certain education? It’s only biology and you can google most of it anyways.
  - earthboundkid 6y ago
    Watching doctors google stuff really makes you worry about the medical equivalent of StackOverflow code.
    - Xylakant 6y ago
      We all do google stuff. The part that requires training is knowing what to google for and how to interpret the results.

avhception 6y ago

> hard for them to get into the apprentice system? Speaking as a German, it's also a failure to integrate these people properly. The small bakery in my home town closed down, too. Immigrants are in no short supply, but there are a few factors that prevent them from taking on a venture like that: - They're generally forbidden to work until their formal immigration process has made enough progress in our bureaucracy, which can take years - They usually have no capital to pay for up-front expenses like buying the buildings and equipment - We segregate them from society by putting them in some sort of immigrant shelter while the bureaucracy does it's thing Especially the last point is rather bad I think, it leads to parallel societies that keep to themselves rather than integrating into the German society surrounding them. Most Muslim migrants would probably rather not operate a "German"-style bakery in the traditional sense. Our capability for integration is declining, too, because as a society we are becoming more and more estranged from our fellow citizens as community activities, especially in small towns and villages, dry up.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
razakel 6y ago
It very much sounds as if you're confusing immigrants and refugees here.
- jbarberu 6y ago
  I disagree. As an immigrant in America it sounds very much like my first 11 months here. Legal immigrant, unable to work while waiting for paperwork.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]