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Here in Germany we get yet another "we need much more immigration because of labor shortage" article in the major news media at least every week, I saw even mor

Here in Germany we get yet another "we need much more immigration because of labor shortage" article in the major news media at least every week, I saw even more than that the last two weeks with at least three in Zeit and Spiegel the last week, on the top of the homepage each time. Just today (paywall, German): https://www.zeit.de/politik/2022-12/fachkraefteeinwanderung-bundesregierung-haeufigste-fragen-faq https://www.zeit.de/politik/2022-12/fachkraefteeinwanderung-... -- or https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/iw-studie-fachkraeftemangel-gefaehrdet-energiewende-a-7e3c1c72-c105-4844-9664-d69db9493623 https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/iw-studie-fachkra... Of course, also every time they completely ignore 80% of what the comments say, from individual experiences of qualified people looking for a job to arguments about not seeing any increase in compensation, asking how that can be if there's a market. I myself remember not long ago meeting a young university-qualified engineer with a few years of experiences still having to work for a body-lease shop, moving him between different employers every year, so that they can avoid actually hiring such engineers. Or the bad working conditions in craft jobs, where there really is a large unmet demand, but it's still extremely unattractive to enter this market. I find the lack of any reaction to the overwhelming feedback they get every single time to these articles more than a bit suspicious. They repeat the exact same message without the slightest change. Maybe quoting a different person (always from an employer organization) and using slightly different sentences, not an exact reprint, but definitely the exact content every time. I have no doubt that some companies have trouble finding the right people, but I also have no doubt that there is something seriously wrong on a deeper level. Unfortunately the media are no help trying to shed some light on the deeper and more complex issues.

ls15 4y ago
There is a (real) shortage of nurses, but not necessarily of blockchain engineers.
- danrocks 4y ago
  Bitcoin solves that.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  The shortage of nurses in European countries is caused by the poor pay, long hours and high stress working conditions in the overburdened and underfunded public healthcare system, not by the lack of qualified personnel. After Covid, thanks to remote work as well, many nurses switched careers to something that pays better or has more reasonable hours and flexibility. We have enough qualified people that could do the nursing job but not enough of them are willing to do it, making it basically an artificial self inflicted shortage. Private healthcare facilities had no shortage of nurses as they can charge customers whatever the current market rate is, not what the government says it should be. Increased pay and working conditions could cause nurses to return to the public sector, but then the question is "where money from?"
  - mjhay 4y ago
    I don't think you were making this argument, but the private healthcare system in the US is suffering a nursing "shortage" as well, so it shouldn't be taken as a truism that in the private sector, the wages and conditions simply improve enough to balance the supply of nurses.
- nosianu 4y ago
  Yes, as I said, shortages may be real - however, the media don't react at all to the numerous people raising the question of why there is no increase in the price to meet the demand, meaning higher wages. My point was not that there are no shortages, but that the writers of the many articles about it are deaf to any feedback and only promote the exact same talking points without change. The "pro markets" side has always been quick to point to "the market" - but strangely, they completely ignore it when it comes to employment, where the market does not seem to work at all. Price seems to be decoupled from demand and those same pro-market voices ignore any and all questions about that phenomenon.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    I don't know where you are but nurses are getting higher pay -- often including double or more for overtime (which is great in the short term but not sustainable). I have a son looking at nursing now because the job prospects are better than tech and with the aging population I don't see demand for nurses relaxing anytime soon.
    - nosianu 4y ago
      > I don't know where you are I started my original comment above with "Here in Germany...". As for current income data, it does not really matter at all? Because whatever the current level is, it's not part of my argument. It's about the market mechanism - higher demand should lead to higher wages. The dynamic behavior, the price changes. And we don't have that, even if you can show some increase, it's nowhere near the changes in demand. In many sectors. The argument was, if there really is a shortage, since we have a market, we should see or have already seen significant increases in compensation to signal the truth of such claims. We have not, not even close, for many years. The only kind of jobs where compensation increased far far above inflation was - the very top levels of management. Citing a statement from https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/manager-gehaelter-steigen-waehrend-untere-mittelschicht-weniger-verdient-a/ https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/manager-gehaelter-... > Führungskräfte haben ihren Gehaltsvorsprung laut eine Analyse der KfW zwischen 2010 und 2020 weiter ausgebaut. Ihr Gehalt stieg in zehn Jahren um fast 27 Prozent – auf fast doppelt so viel wie der Gesamtdurchschnitt aller Leistungsgruppen. Translation of the main point: Managers compensation between 2010 and 2020 increased about twice as much as the average of all groups.
wil421 4y ago
I’m US based but used to work with a lot of people in EU/UK and Eastern Europe. Almost all of the IT/Software Engineer staff from German and UK customers I worked with were contractors. I was a little shocked about how much was outsourced to avoid a full time employee. Almost all were talented but only a very small German IP phone company and a very high tech German lens maker had staff software engineers.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >I was a little shocked about how much was outsourced to avoid a full time employee. Because in Germany, firing full time employees is nearly impossible, so companies use contractors from body-shops or off-shore work to Eastern Europe to avoid the risks of being sattled with useless employees they can't get rid of later. I've seen this happen first hand. Many older German SW engineers from traditional companies refused to keep up with modern tech and tools, preferring to coast and do nothing till retirement, rather than learn and adapt, bogging the company down heavily. One old German dude I used to work with would intentionally break git repos in protest, because he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?", despite receiving numerous trainings paid by the company on how to use git. He was still kept around because he couldn't be fired but wasn't contributing to anything productive. Same with transitioning employees like him to "new" programming languages like Java or C#. Stuff like this is why EU devs earn less than US devs and why traditional German companies are no SW leaders and will die a slow death.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    > he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?" Maybe his point was valid?
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      As a personal preference sure. But then he's free to look for a company where he can keep using Clearcase instead of sabotaging the change and holding back development for everyone, just to avoid having to learn git even though the company is paying him to learn it. Clearcase does cost licensing money for the company though and also time in onboarding new grads who are already familiar with git. Git is also supported out of the box by all the CI/CD and modern dev tooling. Getting tools to work with Clearcase is a wasteful effort. So I can't see how his point would be valid in any business sense other than stubbornness.

ls15 4y ago

There is a (real) shortage of nurses, but not necessarily of blockchain engineers.

danrocks 4y ago
Bitcoin solves that.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
The shortage of nurses in European countries is caused by the poor pay, long hours and high stress working conditions in the overburdened and underfunded public healthcare system, not by the lack of qualified personnel. After Covid, thanks to remote work as well, many nurses switched careers to something that pays better or has more reasonable hours and flexibility. We have enough qualified people that could do the nursing job but not enough of them are willing to do it, making it basically an artificial self inflicted shortage. Private healthcare facilities had no shortage of nurses as they can charge customers whatever the current market rate is, not what the government says it should be. Increased pay and working conditions could cause nurses to return to the public sector, but then the question is "where money from?"
- mjhay 4y ago
  I don't think you were making this argument, but the private healthcare system in the US is suffering a nursing "shortage" as well, so it shouldn't be taken as a truism that in the private sector, the wages and conditions simply improve enough to balance the supply of nurses.
nosianu 4y ago
Yes, as I said, shortages may be real - however, the media don't react at all to the numerous people raising the question of why there is no increase in the price to meet the demand, meaning higher wages. My point was not that there are no shortages, but that the writers of the many articles about it are deaf to any feedback and only promote the exact same talking points without change. The "pro markets" side has always been quick to point to "the market" - but strangely, they completely ignore it when it comes to employment, where the market does not seem to work at all. Price seems to be decoupled from demand and those same pro-market voices ignore any and all questions about that phenomenon.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  I don't know where you are but nurses are getting higher pay -- often including double or more for overtime (which is great in the short term but not sustainable). I have a son looking at nursing now because the job prospects are better than tech and with the aging population I don't see demand for nurses relaxing anytime soon.
  - nosianu 4y ago
    > I don't know where you are I started my original comment above with "Here in Germany...". As for current income data, it does not really matter at all? Because whatever the current level is, it's not part of my argument. It's about the market mechanism - higher demand should lead to higher wages. The dynamic behavior, the price changes. And we don't have that, even if you can show some increase, it's nowhere near the changes in demand. In many sectors. The argument was, if there really is a shortage, since we have a market, we should see or have already seen significant increases in compensation to signal the truth of such claims. We have not, not even close, for many years. The only kind of jobs where compensation increased far far above inflation was - the very top levels of management. Citing a statement from https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/manager-gehaelter-steigen-waehrend-untere-mittelschicht-weniger-verdient-a/ https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/manager-gehaelter-... > Führungskräfte haben ihren Gehaltsvorsprung laut eine Analyse der KfW zwischen 2010 und 2020 weiter ausgebaut. Ihr Gehalt stieg in zehn Jahren um fast 27 Prozent – auf fast doppelt so viel wie der Gesamtdurchschnitt aller Leistungsgruppen. Translation of the main point: Managers compensation between 2010 and 2020 increased about twice as much as the average of all groups.

wil421 4y ago

I’m US based but used to work with a lot of people in EU/UK and Eastern Europe. Almost all of the IT/Software Engineer staff from German and UK customers I worked with were contractors. I was a little shocked about how much was outsourced to avoid a full time employee. Almost all were talented but only a very small German IP phone company and a very high tech German lens maker had staff software engineers.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>I was a little shocked about how much was outsourced to avoid a full time employee. Because in Germany, firing full time employees is nearly impossible, so companies use contractors from body-shops or off-shore work to Eastern Europe to avoid the risks of being sattled with useless employees they can't get rid of later. I've seen this happen first hand. Many older German SW engineers from traditional companies refused to keep up with modern tech and tools, preferring to coast and do nothing till retirement, rather than learn and adapt, bogging the company down heavily. One old German dude I used to work with would intentionally break git repos in protest, because he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?", despite receiving numerous trainings paid by the company on how to use git. He was still kept around because he couldn't be fired but wasn't contributing to anything productive. Same with transitioning employees like him to "new" programming languages like Java or C#. Stuff like this is why EU devs earn less than US devs and why traditional German companies are no SW leaders and will die a slow death.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  > he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?" Maybe his point was valid?
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    As a personal preference sure. But then he's free to look for a company where he can keep using Clearcase instead of sabotaging the change and holding back development for everyone, just to avoid having to learn git even though the company is paying him to learn it. Clearcase does cost licensing money for the company though and also time in onboarding new grads who are already familiar with git. Git is also supported out of the box by all the CI/CD and modern dev tooling. Getting tools to work with Clearcase is a wasteful effort. So I can't see how his point would be valid in any business sense other than stubbornness.