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Germany goes from labour shortages to hiring freezes
- spwa4 5mo agoCreating an ever-larger union makes goods cheap(er) by moving jobs out of expensive markets. Surprised?
- akie 5mo agoGermany went from labour shortage to hiring freezes in like two to three years. This has nothing to do with unions, which have been on a long downward slope for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1356608/trade-unions-germany-density-bargaining-rights-eu/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1356608/trade-unions-ger... Stop watching Fox News.
- dgellow 5mo agoI think they mean the EU
- nephihaha 5mo agoGermany was one of the prototypes for the European Union in my view. I'm not talking about violent expansion but the Zollverein and other similar processes which united Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria with a number of other Länder.
- croes 5mo agoShame on the workers who want their share from the work they did, poor shareholders, all their hard work for nothing. /s Unions in Germany have less power than in France for instance. The rights to strike are more restrictive
- dgellow 5mo agoI really wouldn’t look at France as a system to emulate. Their economy is also going through a pretty rough decade
- croes 5mo agoFrance is just an example of strike possibilities. It’s ridiculous to blame unions in Germany where things like political strikes are not allowed … because a former Nazi judge said so.
- SockThief 5mo agohttps://archive.ph/FtxZ9 https://archive.ph/FtxZ9
- pocksuppet 5mo agoThis is walled behind Google device attestation - scan QR code on a supported phone to pass captcha.
- oytis 5mo agoJokes on FT, we have both
- fuzzybear3965 5mo ago"We" refers to Germany?
- oytis 5mo agoYes
- hugh-avherald 5mo agoWe are all Berliners.
- zelphirkalt 5mo agoI am not so sure we really have or had both. Maybe for roles like electrician and tiler and such. But for roles like teachers, I feel it is not the case, or policy makers are extremely stupid here. The hurdles for someone to become a teacher without having studied that are still very high. It doesn't seem like policies a nation would implement, if they really wanted more teachers. For example you need to have 500h of base level pedagogy training (which would be OK) and of course you need to be very knowledgeable in the subject you want to teach (also makes sense), but that's not enough, no, they want, that usually after 3 years you teach 2 subjects, not only the one you are knowledgeable in. So you are expected to either have sufficient knowledge (lectures at university count towards that, but may well not be sufficient) in a second subject, or to somehow catch up on that. In my case, I did consider becoming a teacher for IT stuff. Not really "IT", as pupils would first learn the basics of course, and the really interesting stuff might not even fit into the curriculum, but I could well imagine teaching what I know and maybe even establishing an extracurricular computer programming club or something. I would feel great passing on my knowledge. But what second subject to teach? ... The only other applicable thing I had in some amount during my studies is ... math. Ugh. You telling me I might have to take additional math lectures, with people who study to become math teachers?! No friggin way man. Also am not a native English speaker, and while I use English every day all day long, I don't think I have the detailed knowledge to teach it responsibly to students, unless they are total beginners, but I won't be teaching IT stuff in primary school, now will I. If you stick to only one subject, perhaps they will tolerate you, but your salary will forever be a reduced one, even if you work the same hours, just because you only do one subject, and no matter how much of an expert you are. When it comes to IT/software engineering I don't think there ever was a shortage. Just businesses, implementing big tech hiring processes for their tiny startups and then playing surprised pikachu, that they are "not finding talent".
- joe_mamba 5mo agoThere was never a labor shortage, just a shortage of pay from unscrupulous employers being addicted to cheap labor.
- unsupp0rted 5mo agoLuckily they’ve brought in plenty of people eager to sacrifice short term being exploited for long term exploiting others.
- pietro72ohboy 5mo agoAnd who are these people?
- angry_octet 5mo agoIndians. Well educated, hard working, and willing to put in 20 years of serfdom to get that green card. Even a 30% discount on wages is still a better quality of life than their alternatives. If they were granted proper work visas with portability then wages would go up. That's why Elon and co love H1Bs.
- kingleopold 5mo agoGermany can't do this because nobody wants to learn German + paid funny amounts compared to USA
- watwut 5mo agoGermany had high influx of immigrants.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- mschuster91 5mo ago
- AdrianB1 5mo agoThe article is low quality. It talks a bit about the problem, not about the cause and it does not help anyone. The example at the beginning seems to be a now classic "I have a degree in an area where supply greatly exceeds demand". There is demand, there is supply, but there is a misalignment of qualifications and interests. If "well-qualified people" means fresh graduates in domains with low demand, then the qualification does not matter. In areas like constructions and handymen there is a serious shortage, if not a crisis, in the entire Western Europe. There are jobs, but not the ones most people want. Too many people go to universities for a degree without checking if there is demand for these degree. Many that I know go to universities just to have a degree, they don't even care what is the domain. I have a childhood friend that is regularly unemployed, he is a historian, but he does not like working in archeological sites and there is not enough need for historians. At the same time we cannot find enough people for construction works, it is hard work and most people don't want it (diversity and equality does not work in such jobs, never did).
- skirge 5mo agoI come from Eastern Europe. Teachers used to tell us that we had to go to university if we wanted to have an easier life later on.
- nephihaha 5mo agoWe all got told this. The trouble is that it isn't always true. A good STEM degree could do, but so many others don't. Now we're seeing the slow death of some of the professions, and it's started with accountancy.
- AdrianB1 5mo agoSame for me; but what they did not tell, because it was not needed at that time, is that not everyone is capable of going to an university, the admission was tough and the school was hard, so people were filtered by capabilities. 20 years later universities doubled the number of students as they made it a business first, not education first, so we got too many people with worthless diploma and no qualifications and no potential.
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- woodpanel 5mo agoFT is four years late to this.
- Rp8yXmdmr 5mo agoIsn't German economy strongly tied to performance of its car manufactures? Them being out competed might started about 3-4 years ago but the impact on other sectors would take some time.
- dgellow 5mo ago4y ago was also when Russia invaded Ukraine, a lot of Germany’s industry was reliant on cheap gas from Russia. If we include Covid, now Iran war there has been a lot of factors impacting the German economy this decade (same for other countries of course). As someone living there I’m actually surprised things turned out that well so far. The country is still pretty stable
- markvdb 5mo agoOne could reasonably have expected much worse than "just" automotive and energy intensive sectors in crisis in Germany. The Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Trump administration actively shrinking the economic cake worldwide. Its active economic and cultural warfare against Europe. Nothing to sneeze at. Germany and by extension the EU have shown remarkable resilience for now. The question what will happen next should an actual crisis follow. Don't be surprised should Europe further integrate its capital markets and defense to some extent.
- NordStreamYacht 5mo agoYou forgot about the energy crisis: Nord Stream for one.
- bestham 5mo agoThat is just a side effect of Russia attacking Ukraine.
- NordStreamYacht 5mo agoThat's the part which I don't understand: so what? Let them duke it out, why would you passively destroy your own country?
- whizzter 5mo agoCarmakers in Germany has a bit of blame for not moving quickly enough, but China hogging materials doesn't help. The chemical sector hit though feels more self-inflicted by the government that closed down nuclear plants to rely on Russian gas. The annoying part (Nordstream unrelated) is that they didn't see it fit to put a brake on the nuclear decomissioning already in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine first.
- PurpleRamen 5mo agoDefine quickly. The problems are known for 10+ years, the calling is around for even longer. Germany car-industry has been stagnating for decades, rotting through the system even today, years after all those crises have starting killing it.
- NordStreamYacht 5mo ago[flagged]
- xplt 5mo agoUsername checks out :))
- NordStreamYacht 5mo agoI'm obsessed with that fairy tale. Bunch of drunk dudes and dudettes blew up a deep gas line while cavorting on a yacht. It's almost as if they're mocking our intelligence.
- dgellow 5mo agoAlmost as if you had different groups of flawed humans with different visions, beliefs and goals trying to somehow govern the country. It’s not like other countries are always acting rationally… Getting rid of nuclear was a completely obvious blunder, I don’t think that says much about German people being weird or wanting to get rid of their industry. It was a short-termist political decision
- kuerbel 5mo agoGermany is run by very strange people. People who want to cling on to fossil fuels from other countries. It's almost as if they want to be dependent.
- scihuber 5mo agoAll politicians simply psychopaths, or do they have to become psychopaths as they rise to power.
- PurpleRamen 5mo agoFor being unreliable, it's working strangely well and stable. Far better than the fuel-based sources which fail all the time for various reasons.
- IndianAISupport 5mo ago[flagged]
- aleda145 5mo agoOh so lobbying the EU comission to both slash CO2 targets and adding tolls to chinese EV cars did not actually make German auto manufacturers more competitive. Who would have thunk? Yes I'm bitter how much influence the German car companies have over the union.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- Tade0 5mo agoYou're not alone. Several times already I've gotten into internet arguments over this. "But they provide jobs!" is the usual rebuttal. Well, they ain't doin' that any more, are they?
- joe_mamba 5mo ago>"But they provide jobs!" is the usual rebuttal. Well, they ain't doin' that any more, are they? People who support stuff like this, are unable to think 15 minutes past their own actions. They can't comprehend the negative externalities and second order effects of the policies they support. They easily get manipulated to just blindly support feel-good policies based on own-group tribalism, platitudes and vibes, especially the German voters. Same like the crowd who thinks rent freeze is the solution to rising rents. They don't understand supply and demand, so they can't comprehend how this will lead to a massive housing disaster down the road, they just want frozen rents for themselves now, and 'after me, the flood'. Hell, people don't even understand how inflation works, they think prices increases just come from greed of business owners, they can't fathom how currency is being devalued by massive government money printing that inflates assets and devalues their labor. This is beyond their level of understanding. When you work public facing service jobs, you realize just how stupid the average person is, so no wonder politicians and elites can rob us blind via laws and policies implemented with our own accord, while then having us blame each other and fight over sports-ball. Sorry if I sound overly nihilistic, but this is my conclusion after so many years of human interactions on this planet. We get the leadership and outcome we deserve, nothing more, nothing less.
- ololobus 5mo agoThe job market all over the world is ultimately changing. Wars, AI, energy crisis, etc. — it’s a combination of factors. Yet, the article is too shallow, so it doesn’t clarify much. The two examples are not really representative, “press spokesman at a small industry association” and entry-level “apprenticeship in marketing communications and a bachelor’s degree in international management”. I don’t want to say that they are completely bs jobs but, well, these are quite niche. Both seem to be only ‘affordable’ for a strong economy, not during an economic instability. What I’d like to get answers to is why if everyone says about shortages of nurses, doctors, teachers, plumbers and other handymen, highly qualified engineers capable of making some complex stuff like rockets; I don’t really see any policy makers pushing to make such jobs more appealing, I don’t see people around talking about moving to any of such areas even if they struggle or lose their office/corporate jobs, or talking about their kids learning to do one of them
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- soco 5mo agoAnd here I have the same impression: there's a lot of talk and very little action (not nothing, just too little in comparison). An important source of problem identification talk is the opposition, which noticed that to criticize is very easy, it attracts attention and supporters, while actually FIXING things is a shitload of work and better leave it for the others. It reminds me of a recent read about Locard's exchange principle: every contact will bring something into the scene and leave with something from it, and the opposition cannot stand to be washed down by actually trying to fix something.
- joe_mamba 5mo ago>And here I have the same impression: there's a lot of talk and very little action Genuine question: What action were you expecting?
- leereeves 5mo ago> What I’d like to get answers to is why if everyone says about shortages of nurses, doctors, teachers, plumbers and other handymen, highly qualified engineers capable of making some complex stuff like rockets; I don’t really see any policy makers pushing to make such jobs more appealing, I don’t see people around talking about moving to any of such areas even if they struggle or lose their office/corporate jobs, or talking about their kids learning to do one of them I believe that the people in charge don't want to improve working conditions, but in fact want to increase hours, lower pay, and deregulate. So they complain about shortages (without mentioning "of people willing to accept those conditions") and push to lower standards. And unfortunately they are able to get major media outlets to publish that message without questioning it. (Also, there was a genuine nursing shortage for a while after Covid, because conditions were so bad a lot of people left the profession. People may still talk about that even though it has resolved now.)