12 ms·

Germany is wildly underestimated in the current moment. The immigration wave has changed the demographics, Germany is not going to age quickly and it is growing

• zelphirkalt 3y ago
  Germany has an ever growing pile of problems to solve though. Corruption, lobbyism, undemocratic measures, horrendous education sector, overworked employees in the most critical institutions and jobs (teachers, medical personell, doctors, firefighters, etc.), bad integration policies, failing infrastructure and politicians, who do all they can to make sure it keeps failing, and probably many more. Gemany might not be the worst place. But it definitely has lost a lot of appeal due to all those issues.
• Georgelemental 3y ago
  How productive are the new arrivals though?
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • constantly 3y ago
    I saw an article recently that claimed Germany was going to surpass Japan as the third largest economy, aided partially by new arrivals. So I infer they’re pretty productive! Will try to find you a link.
    • sally_glance 3y ago
      Surpassed because of weak Yen, not because of Germany's growth: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-24/germany-to-pass-japan-as-3rd-largest-economy-helped-by-weak-yen https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-24/germany-t...
  • dj_mc_merlin 3y ago
    Well, 90% of the people in my office are immigrants. Pretty productive. Obviously however software engineering has been a very immigrant-heavy industry in Europe for a long time. There's just not enough German software engineers to work the huge capital that it has. When looking at more common jobs, it's quite hard to find a German when you pass by any construction site. In fact, I can speak to a good amount of the workers in my native language.
    • thefounder 3y ago
      >> Obviously however software engineering has been a very immigrant-heavy industry in Europe for a long time. That's news to me. Even in London is not that immigrant heavy unless you consider the Europeans immigrants.
      • dj_mc_merlin 3y ago
        I do. I immigrated from my country => I'm an immigrant. If I were to count only people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia as immigrants, probably closer to 35%.
        • hef19898 3y ago
          Ah, the not-that-kind-of-foreigner, racist way of counting! Some people love to do that, don't they?
        • incahoots 3y ago
          Hopefully you're doing well. Leaving your home country takes a toll I imagine.
          • dj_mc_merlin 3y ago
            Left more than a decade ago so Germany feels like home now. Adjusting took a couple years, German culture was difficult to understand. Doing very well now, thank you for the comment.
        • 3y ago
  • luckystarr 3y ago
    Its varied. I think there was no study that checks that for the whole of Germany, but in my town, most (>90%) of the Syrian refugees from a few years back are now settled down, have a job and and pay social security. A few have high paying jobs (construction, specialized metal-working, etc.), but many of them are in the medium to low income sector. Interestingly, they view food related jobs as high status jobs, whereas German people do not. So many of them are employed in restaurants, etc. Update: there are of course also other arrivals, but the Syrians make the bulk of them.
    • sourcegrift 3y ago
      [flagged]
    • Garvi 3y ago
      It's cheap labor for employers and bad news for German employees who felt the jobs weren't paid enough. The employees who wouldn't work for a "hungerlohn" are forced now as the emplyeers have absolutely no incentive to lower their profit margins, with all the Syrian refugees willing to work for less. I'm sure they're grateful and that they're doing better than in US occupied Syria (Isn't it great how much media coverage the Syrian invasion and civil displacement got?), but it's still an exploitative profit oriented system that's taking advantage of peoples situation. Edit: Knowing HN, I'll be the one called racist as opposed to the comment right next to me that's saying terrible things about Muslims.
      • mrtksn 3y ago
        I downvoted you not because you said anything racist but because I strongly disagree with your argument about achieving high salaries through limiting the workforce availability. The problem with this approach is that, the compensation becomes high for no good reason and since less people are working the output declines. Everything becomes more expensive because the consumption stays the same or higher but the production don't follow. Maybe you make more money by not letting a Syrian immigrant to cook food and compete with you but you also pay more to have your apartment painted because they didn't let some other Syrian immigrant compete in the painting business. Immigrants that work create prosperity. If you are having trouble competing with a newcomers who barely speak the language, don't know anything of your culture and they grew up in a much poorer conditions in a country with much less opportunities, then it's on you. You should have taken advantage of living in this rich country that has given you all kind of opportunities, if you can't I don't see moral obligation to pay you well just because you are local. People who want to participate in the society, create value and be compensated for it should not be stopped from doing it just because it might hurt someone else's prospect. This is basically the same argument against technology where some people would argue that we should limit robots and automation so that the workers can keep their jobs. People are scared of change and don't want competition but if we artificially limit competition, the whole society will end up uncompetitive and catastrophe can happen. Protectionism is very dangerous, look what's happening to VW.
  • Eumenes 3y ago
    Not very - https://www.iab-forum.de/en/what-do-we-know-about-the-employment-of-refugees-in-germany-answers-to-some-frequently-asked-questions/ https://www.iab-forum.de/en/what-do-we-know-about-the-employ... Less than 50% are employed 5 years after arrival, in a country with 5.7% unemployment. I imagine adults who don't speak the language, require financial assistance, etc, will be a net drain from a tax perspective on a society, esp. when you factor in the high CoL. Its hard enough for the average naturalized citizen to be a net positive from a tax perspective, let alone someone from an entirely different world. An inconvenient/unpopular, but obvious truth.
    • mejutoco 3y ago
      That data is about refugees. You are conflating new arrivals with refugees, which is not accurate. Some people might think it is even in bad faith. What about all the other immigrants from EU or abroad whose higher education was not paid by Germany and they immigrate to Germany? Surely that is a positive. Germany is benefiting from paid-by-somebody-else qualified applicants.
      • Eumenes 3y ago
        Highly educated immigrants who speak the language are a net positive, for sure.
        • flohofwoe 3y ago
          > Highly educated immigrants who speak the language The latter isn't really a requirement, at least when working in tech. I barely speak any German at all in my job, and I'm a German dude working at a German company. All companies I worked for since 2010 had English as "company language", and immigrants were in the majority (mostly from other European countries, but also US and Canada).
          • Eumenes 3y ago
            Ya makes sense, with Berlin essentially being an international airport in terms of demographics. I suppose knowing English would suffice.
  • selfmodruntime 3y ago
    Contrary to the parent comment and what you will read here: Not very. This won't change for a long time. Syrians from 2015 earn a lot less than the median and more than 70% rely on welfare that pays out more than they earn [1]. Up to 90% of Ukranians rely on welfare [2], costing the German Government half a billion dollars in in welfare checks alone. Marrocans are three times as likely to rely on welfare / to be jobless than Germans [3]. There are three times as many jobless people with a history of migration than Germans [4]. This is not a political agenda. These are just facts. [1]: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/arbeitsmarkt-fuer-fluechtlinge-mehrheit-der-syrer-bekommt-hartz-iv-17436764.html https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/arbeitsmarkt-fuer-flu... [2]: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2023-10/ukraine-gefluechtete-arbeitsmarkt-buergergeld-sanktionen https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2023-10/ukraine-gefl... [3]: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article168661565/Tuerkischstaemmige-Migranten-in-einer-besonders-unguenstigen-Lage.html#:~:text=Im%20Schnitt%20sind%20Marokkaner%2C%20die,Unterschiede%20zwischen%20den%20neuen%20Heimatl%C3%A4ndern https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article168661565/Tuerkischsta.... [4]: https://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/arbeitsmarkt.html#:~:text=2021%20lagen%20die%20Erwerbslosenquotender,2%20Prozent%20(rund%20693.000%20Erwerbslose) https://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/arbeitsmarkt...
• jackcosgrove 3y ago
  The main critiques of Germany I hear are not demographic but rather have to do with problems in industrial and energy policy. Namely the failure to anticipate the shift to electric vehicles and the over-reliance on natural gas for energy.
  • liotier 3y ago
    Germany's energy policy failed badly, but consider Germany as part of the European Union with nuclear-powered France as its neighbour. Ensemble wir schaffen das !
    • ktosobcy 3y ago
      You mean that Germany that shits in nuclear left and right, trying to block it from EU green agenda and then threatening it's neighbours when they wanted to went nuclear?
      • liotier 3y ago
        That is the funny part: when the sun is down and the wind is not sufficient (surprisingly often), nuclear-hating Germany buys power from its neighbours - chiefly France (nuclear) and Switzerland (hydro and nuclear)
        • mrits 3y ago
          At least there exists a reason to prefer nuclear power plants from being farther away from you. What the US does with oil makes even less sense. What the US does with the transportation of oil makes even lesser sense. If climate crisis is existential it seems like it would be worth having a few oil spills along a pipeline to save some carbon.
          • Detrytus 3y ago
            > At least there exists a reason to prefer nuclear power plants from being farther away from you. Not at the distances this short. If anything happens to any of the nuclear plants in France the pollution will reach Germany within 24 hours. I've actually seen this used as an argument FOR building nuclear power plants in Poland: we already have like 10 such plants within 200 miles from our borders, so we already have all of the risks, but none of the benefits.
• ekianjo 3y ago
  > Germany is not going to age quickly and it is growing in population. Raw numbers don't matter. Culture will be deeply impacted. Also, the energy policy of Germany is catastrophic and will guarantee its doom
  • hef19898 3y ago
    All the right wing fear uttering in two short sentences. Well done!
    • edgyquant 3y ago
      Not a response
      • hef19898 3y ago
        Technically so, as I pressed the "reply" button, it is! As is yours.
    • jansan 3y ago
      The energy policy is catastrophic, there is nothing right wing there. The wind power revolution will not happen, at least not nearly as fast or cheap as the government is planning.
      • hef19898 3y ago
        So, nuclear? Isn't faster nor cheaper. Coal? A no-go due to polution. Gas? To expensive for electricity in the current, read since at least for the last ten years, market. Leaves hydro, oil, wind and solar. But yeah, Germany financed and caused Russias war with Ukraine by impoeting gas from Putin, I know.
        • jansan 3y ago
          Shutting down the three last nuclear reactors in the middle of an energy crisis was probably one of the most moronic things in world politics during the last 5000 years.
• throwawy7 3y ago
  The whole Europe should welcome more immigrants to have strong economy and manufacturing base like China. Europe has space for another 500 million population.
• mrtksn 3y ago
  Having lived in UK and Germany for some time, although I'm a big fan of the British culture, I keep maintaining that Germany is much much better country overall simply because it's not centralised as UK is centralised in London. Germany is prosperous, maybe there are not as many Unicorns as in USA or even UK, the country works like a clockwork and everyone is very active in very wide range of stuff. All those charts showing how Europe is behind because top 100 largest companies are mostly American tech giants, some petrol companies and some construction and bank stuff from China? Those are so so misleading into making people believe that Germany or mainland Europe is a wasteland that missed out on technology. Especially Germany, they have very well educated and healthy population and even if they don't make the most trendy consumer products right now, they still have wast infrastructure and people who can produce things. Of course not everything is rosy, but Germany's and mainland Europe's core problems all come down to cheap energy availability and that's solvable. It's much easier to solve than stuff like widespread social problems like decline due to drug use or political instability. They tend to rely on paperwork a bit too much maybe, they don't use credit cards that much etc. all these stereotypes are true but technology is not limited to computers, other stuff is also important and they are still pretty good in these things.
  • piva00 3y ago
    Germany is a powerhouse of medium-sized companies supplying precision engineering to a bunch of other industries. Those companies are mostly invisible to the consumer market but provide the machines which make machines, the German M&E (machinery and equipment) sector is massive, just not as flashy as tech unicorns creating yet-another ad-filled consumer product...
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • junon 3y ago
      ZEISS is another one but I wouldn't consider them midsize.
    • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
• TMWNN 3y ago
  No one believes the "doctors and engineers" line anymore. That mantra began dying after the 2015-2016 Cologne mass attacks on women, and every new incident since then has reduced its viability. The current pro-Hamas demonstrations throughout Europe are just the latest in a long line of such. The Mittelstand is certainly not rushing to hire them.
  • f6v 3y ago
    Cologne attacks represent such a tiny fraction of immigrants. It’s like saying that 100% of Norwegian terrorist acts has been carried out by white men, and, therefore, Norwegian white men are all terrorists. Complety stupid.
    • Wytwwww 3y ago
      What you saying doesen't make any sense statistically.
      • f6v 3y ago
        Please enlighten us on the crime-ethnicity relationships in Germany.
        • Wytwwww 3y ago
          [flagged]
        • selimthegrim 3y ago
          You can play a drinking game for every time the word “migration-background” is mentioned
    • selfmodruntime 3y ago
      The muslim generation (of which you can count the majority of immigrants to) is immensely more likely to be socially conservative, be it negative opinions on women's freedom or the acceptance of queer people and the jewish. Why you think they would change their opinions just because they migrate to western countries is beyond me.
• rsynnott 3y ago
  I mean, currently it looks like it's more or less treading water on population, though it has gotten out of decline, which is positive.
• huytersd 3y ago
  Always bet on Germany on the upswing. Make sure you cash out at the peak though.
• Tade0 3y ago
  Looking at how Germany's population after WW2 peaked three times already (in the early 70s, at the turn of the century, at the end of the pandemic), the environment there doesn't support having a growing population. Moreover, the usual source countries have a below-replacement fertility rate, so the number of prospective immigrants is dwindling. I don't see how this could be sustainable in the long run.
• hobotime 3y ago
  >> The immigration wave has changed the demographics Yes. And it will not be a German culture anymore as Germany is colonized.
  • givemeethekeys 3y ago
    Is it possible to instill the thing one learns about German culture into the immigrants, or at least, their children? I'd say yes. Are they up to the task? There aren't many countries that have the courage to indoctrinate their cultural values into their own children, let alone the immigrants.
    • anonyfox 3y ago
      What is „courage“ in indoctrinating people? It’s actually dumb. Diversity of thoughts and values is where societal progress comes from, when outdated stuff gets questioned. The important part is preventing one culture to overwhelm everything else of course, this is where many fail. Diversity must not bow to anything that wants to enforce beliefs into everyone, no matter if religions (domestic or imported) or politics or whatever. Diversity itself is a core value in itself, however.
      • givemeethekeys 3y ago
        Unifying values that the diverse groups agree are common among each other - values that they're willing to defend against some foreign aggressor, and indoctrinate into new immigrants. What does it mean to be British? or French? or German? What is the European dream? Is it attainable? Defendable? Teachable? It's gotta be more than the language.
    • dauertewigkeit 3y ago
      I think that would qualify as ethnic cleansing to some extent, and don't think it would be moral. At the very least countries should be very upfront about their intentions if that is their plan. Imagine if you had to emigrate to China and was forcefully interned in a re-education camp... Looking at the US, it does just fine integrating different cultures from all over the world. All the problem ethnicities in Europe are gainfully employed model citizens in the US. One should maybe ask what is going wrong in Europe before resorting to extreme measures.