6 ms·

It doesn’t matter what the wages are, if there aren’t enough people willing to work for them, they aren’t high enough. That’s the core of labor markets. Import

by Amezarak 11mo ago

It doesn’t matter what the wages are, if there aren’t enough people willing to work for them, they aren’t high enough. That’s the core of labor markets. Importing migrants just worsens the underlying problem. You destroy your own pipeline and eventually run out of migrants. Germany needs to pay more and provide a better work environment instead of just finding people desperate enough it seems like a good deal. Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary. Crazy!

jijijijij 11mo ago
> Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary, Where did you get this figure? 23.70€/h (~27.60 USD/h) apparently is the average wage for nurses. Working full-time, 38 hours per week, that's 46,831.2€ (54,492.34 USD) per year. Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Also typically there are 5-6 weeks of paid vacation per year. https://www.allgaeuer-zeitung.de/pflege/durchschnittsgehalt-in-der-pflege-so-viel-geld-bekommen-pflegekraefte-7-12-25-112756727 https://www.allgaeuer-zeitung.de/pflege/durchschnittsgehalt-...
- Amezarak 11mo ago
  > Where did you get this figure? https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN)/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R... I am happy to accept your figure of "slightly more than half" for the sake of this discussion. > Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. Nurses in the US also have half (or more) of costs like health insurance paid for by their employer - in that particular case, almost always much more than half. Half of Social Security retirement tax is paid for by the employer, but additional retirement payments beyond Social Security are usually much less than half. We can probably safely call this a wash. > It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. For instance, the electric rate my German friend is paying in east Germany is 4x(!!!![1]) my rate in the US, and she and her husband pay much more for a small apartment than I do a large house. On top of this, German housing often comes ludicrously unfurnished - most Americans would be surprised to learn that renters are often expected to provide their own kitchen. Germany certainly does not win out on housing costs. Nurses are underpaid. Pay nurses more. [1] I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Even lower class Americans will happily blow hundreds of dollars keeping their house at 60F in 95F degree heat while cooking in their electric oven and running their electric clothesdryer. While this results in "high" bills around $400 here, that'd be $1600 in Germany. You couldn't live like an American there. Even my personal "high" bills which sometimes approach $200 would cause me to cut back severely - $800 would be way too much.
  - jijijijij 11mo ago
    Jesus, you people are certainly something... > We can probably safely call this a wash. Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How many hours do your nurses work for the money? How man vacation days are included. Btw. the median income in Germany is 52,159 Euro. > Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. According to this site, US is 21% more expensive than Germany: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/united-states https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/unite... > I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Are you comparing Idaho to Germany? Cause Californians have to pay more for electricity than Germans. 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany. We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Modern houses are equipped with heat pumps which can do both. Yes, we now widely heat houses with unaffordable electricity! https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-viel-kosten-die-Kilowattstunden,strompreis182.html https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-vi...
    - Amezarak 11mo ago
      > Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good. > How many hours do your nurses work for the money? 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. > How man vacation days are included This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays. > 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole. https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f1740e66f7d2d94d3fab14/472B63F073F071307366337C94F8C870/r0540-data.png https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f17... > We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little. Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?
- nicbou 11mo ago
  That's below the median income, so not a lot for trained personnel. Everything else you say is correct, but it applies to all German workers. In that sense, it's a somewhat low-paid job. It feels to me like they're more deserving of their income than a keyboard jockey like me.

jijijijij 11mo ago

> Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary, Where did you get this figure? 23.70€/h (~27.60 USD/h) apparently is the average wage for nurses. Working full-time, 38 hours per week, that's 46,831.2€ (54,492.34 USD) per year. Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Also typically there are 5-6 weeks of paid vacation per year. https://www.allgaeuer-zeitung.de/pflege/durchschnittsgehalt-in-der-pflege-so-viel-geld-bekommen-pflegekraefte-7-12-25-112756727 https://www.allgaeuer-zeitung.de/pflege/durchschnittsgehalt-...

Amezarak 11mo ago
> Where did you get this figure? https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN)/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R... I am happy to accept your figure of "slightly more than half" for the sake of this discussion. > Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. Nurses in the US also have half (or more) of costs like health insurance paid for by their employer - in that particular case, almost always much more than half. Half of Social Security retirement tax is paid for by the employer, but additional retirement payments beyond Social Security are usually much less than half. We can probably safely call this a wash. > It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. For instance, the electric rate my German friend is paying in east Germany is 4x(!!!![1]) my rate in the US, and she and her husband pay much more for a small apartment than I do a large house. On top of this, German housing often comes ludicrously unfurnished - most Americans would be surprised to learn that renters are often expected to provide their own kitchen. Germany certainly does not win out on housing costs. Nurses are underpaid. Pay nurses more. [1] I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Even lower class Americans will happily blow hundreds of dollars keeping their house at 60F in 95F degree heat while cooking in their electric oven and running their electric clothesdryer. While this results in "high" bills around $400 here, that'd be $1600 in Germany. You couldn't live like an American there. Even my personal "high" bills which sometimes approach $200 would cause me to cut back severely - $800 would be way too much.
- jijijijij 11mo ago
  Jesus, you people are certainly something... > We can probably safely call this a wash. Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How many hours do your nurses work for the money? How man vacation days are included. Btw. the median income in Germany is 52,159 Euro. > Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. According to this site, US is 21% more expensive than Germany: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/united-states https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/unite... > I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Are you comparing Idaho to Germany? Cause Californians have to pay more for electricity than Germans. 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany. We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Modern houses are equipped with heat pumps which can do both. Yes, we now widely heat houses with unaffordable electricity! https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-viel-kosten-die-Kilowattstunden,strompreis182.html https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-vi...
  - Amezarak 11mo ago
    > Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good. > How many hours do your nurses work for the money? 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. > How man vacation days are included This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays. > 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole. https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f1740e66f7d2d94d3fab14/472B63F073F071307366337C94F8C870/r0540-data.png https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f17... > We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little. Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?
nicbou 11mo ago
That's below the median income, so not a lot for trained personnel. Everything else you say is correct, but it applies to all German workers. In that sense, it's a somewhat low-paid job. It feels to me like they're more deserving of their income than a keyboard jockey like me.