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Migration across the world and across history was and is generally about unskilled workers. The skilled people are less incentivized to move (the in-demand skil
by killtimeatwork 6y ago
Migration across the world and across history was and is generally about unskilled workers. The skilled people are less incentivized to move (the in-demand skills guarantee somewhat decent living in most places on Earth), while for unskilled people from poorest countries migrating can be about baseline survival, so the motivation is very strong. Also, the unskilled people are more welcome in the target country, as they do the worst jobs for the least money [1], which basically increases everybody's standard of living.
[1] For example, there would be serious problems in the German society if not for Eastern European immigrants who take care of millions of older people for pennies. If these immigrants were not there, the older people and their families would have to pay 3-4x times the amount for German caretakers, which would of course break the budget of many.
- corty 6y agoThat is quite untrue, especially for Germany. Germany does not only siphon off unskilled (mostly seasonal) laborers from eastern Europe. We also draw in a lot of their educated workforce, which is especially apparent and problematic in fields like medicine, where doctors and nurses wander westward and are the missing in their countries of origin.