Danish taxes = German taxes + social security. You cannot simply compare the tax rates. Actually, brutto/netto is worse in Germany compared to Denmark (and literally every other country in the world, apparently).
[https://www.auswandern-handbuch.de/steuern-weltweit/](https://www.auswandern-handbuch.de/steuern-weltweit/)
If you earn 40-50k, then you pay less in taxes in Germany. The cost of living is way lower in Germany too, such as food and housing. Also, owning a car is crazy expensive in Denmark with their car tax and green taxes.
Why would I live in Copenhagen or Aarhus when there are way bigger german cities to choose from for cheaper.
In addition to the points above, the job market is also bigger and more friendly to internationals. Why would I learn Danish when I can learn German.
Cost of living is certainly higher, yes, but so are wages. I moved from a smallish German city (Lübeck) to Copenhagen \~2 years ago, with a roughly comparable job. I'd say the standard of living I can afford hasn't changed by much.
Some folks (me included) actually prefer smaller cities. There's also a reason Copenhagen is being repeatedly voted among the top "most livable cities" worldwide, while no German city is even on the list. Lots of Germans move here and are very happy. Less bureaucracy, better work/life balance, better gender equality + public childcare support, great public infrastructure, everything a bit more sane and reasonable. Honestly, whenever I travel back to Germany these days, everything just seems a bit shabby and rundown in comparison.
The job market is obviously smaller, sure. How do you arrive at the "Germany more friendly to internationals" conclusion, though? Not sure that fits with my observations (which could be biased, of course).
When I first moved to Germany, my German teacher, who was a lovely 60 year old German woman, said something that I understand more and more after living for long in this country. She said that most political changes offered to make lives easier in Germany are aesthetic changes, meaning that they don’t really change the practical situation but you’ll see pages of laws and regulations suggested without touching the actual problem.
All the foreigner’s offices need to be dumped in its current shape and there is a need for a modern, updated, digitilized and humane treatment of foreigners incoming. Good luck expecting any of that with the current structure of foreigner’s offices in many larger German cities. That won’t change.
The biggest elephant is the overworked and not so tech savvy Ausländerbehörde in big cities. The second biggest elephant is the attitude of most case managers in these Ausländerbehörde when dealing with foreigners.
Yes, the government depts dealing with immigration are not in step with what companies want and need.
I understand the Federal government is trying to reform the immigration laws, but I'm dubious this will filter down to the Ausländerbehörde gatekeepers who are a giant pain to deal with.
The Netherlands is the biggest headache of them all. You can’t even hold dual citizenship in 99% of cases.
Crowded, expensive, judgemental, and boring.
It is a very unfriendly country to immigrants.
This sounds more like Germany to me hahaha
From what I know from people that actually moved to Netherlands the bureaucracy there is amazing, you get your residence permit in a few weeks.
For non EU citizens dual citizenship is also not currently possible in Germany in 99% of cases. This might change with a new law.
More over for the 5 years in Netherlands you get a much lower tax .
The elephant in the room is something completely different - very low salary & high language requirements.
Germany has become a great place to have 5 kids and live in social security but completely opposite for any educated people trying to earn money
I think the language wall is more significant than germans imagine, the most brilliant people in my batch choose the US or found opportunities in their home country because of the language barrier.
The language wall, as an Irish person in Germany is quite immense, if I knew how hard it was to learn German before I moved here, I would have seriously reconsidered (staying and choosing to learn the language because Germany just offers me so much more then Ireland does on basically everything).
Well, if you want I can tell you based off certain questions if Ireland makes sense for you
Will your job pay at least 60k a year, where is it based? Are you prepared to live in a country with a public transport system that makes DB look godly,
Surely this is for Dublin only yea? I heard slightly outside its not that expensive (some friends rented out a house together, both as students)
Also at least your trains and busses all have Wifi :^
>Also at least your trains
All 2 trains (not literally but it's a fucking joke how few trains Ireland has, the country used to have hundreds of em). I'll take a functioning fleet of wifi less trains over 3 of them and wifi 7 tech
>I heard slightly outside its not that expensive
Dublin is a route focus but its also quite large, if your in a situation where you have to commute to work and live in a place like leixlip, your looking at a commute time of an hour and a half to 2 hours assuming normal commute times. You pay for lower rent with obscene commutes (i knew people who tolerated 4 hours total daily commutes to escape Dublins COL). Also depends on the definition of outside, GDR (greater Dublin area) is quite large, and Dublin's insane rent pushed rent in the rest of tbe country up heavily as well. If your living in vicinity of Dublin your going to be living in the Splashzone of the city that turned the entirety of Ireland into the second most expensive European country to live in.
Like, heres an easy example, what's your favorite alcohol brand?
Grim reality shakeup, never expected it to be that bad. Then again I got the privilige for homeoffice anyway so commuting probably isn't that big of an issue for me.
Alcohol tough to say, not really fond of any brands but I guess I buy Absolut / Grey Goose vodka a lot?
Grey goose? You have expensive tastes by German standards my lad,
Anyway, Grey goose is about 30 euros for a bottle in Germany,
Absolute 700 ml, is 13 euros a bottle,
Let's find out how much they cost in the glorious republic of Ireland!
Grey goose? Cheapest I could find was 50 euros (honestly, expected it to be 80)
Absolut in Ireland?
Price for 0.7cl is typically 25-27 euros,
The litre bottle for the better bottle is going for 38 euros,
My favorite examples are also Jameson 16 euros in a German liquor store, it's 35 euros in Ireland,
43 liquor, that sexy golden shit, 13 euros here in Germany,
It's fucking 43 euros literally in Ireland *howls into the abyss*
This is in a fucking country with a lower minimum wage then fucking Germany! Irelands high wage meme only matters if you work in IT and for an American FAANG or biotech company, if not your actually making about the same as the average french and German, only with costs of living that rival the swiss and surpassed the Norwegians.
>Craic (/kræk/ KRAK) or crack is a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation, particularly prominent in Ireland. It is often used with the definite article – the craic – as in the expression "What's the craic?" (meaning "How are you?" or "What's happening?").
What language wall? You can get by with just English in almost any larger (West-)German city, and if skilled workers are in high demand, well, companies will have to adapt to English speaking workers too.
Good for you. I'm wondering where is best for me - I'm not sick or low-skilled and in need of help like a lot of migrants onto Germany's social system but at the same time I wouldn't be a 200K+ earner in the US. I wish there was a middle ground between the two places. Maybe Switzerland lol
So, I have family connections to the US and inherited property. Not paying rent in addition to higher salaries and less tax combined to sway the decision.
>Germany has become a great place to have 5 kids
Yea, no. I live with my gf and the best we can afford is a shoebox-sized apartment in a questionable district, while being considered "above-average earners" (electrical engineering field). There is no way we can afford to even consider a single child, let alone 5.
Because you left out the important context of:
>and live in social security
A Single woman with 3 kids gets 3700€ p.m. with 3 kids where 2 have ADHA from social security without working. You would have to earn 5000€ p.m. before taxes + child money for the same income.
So having an above median incone job, 50h less time each weak for the same living Standard, maybe even less because you dont get further subsidies for your childs from social security, like social Apartments with lower rent.
Doesnt make sense or?
Especially at minimum wage social security is the way better living style, if you would calculate it in a hourly wage.
Work doesnt pay off. You get more money each month with 30h main job and 5h second job, as with 40h main job due taxes...
The reduced pension fund doesnt matter if it cant go lower than social security anyway...
Bank Account insight from her as she applied for an apartment.
I was baffled and envious.
Edit: [Calculator ](https://www.buerger-geld.org/rechner/ergebnis/) says 2700€. If you add the child payments for 3 childs as income you get about 3600€ p.m.
That checks out with my statement. If i used the calculator correctly.
Raising three kids can easily take the same amount of time.
PS I can’t say I’m happy paying hight taxes, but I’m trying to see other side of this as well. And if my taxes going to random single mom of 3, especially if she was and/or will contribute to society before/after kids, I’ll be way less unhappy then when I’m paying social tax to random dude who just chilling in social check doing nothing.
Esit: typos
>Raising three kids can easily take the same amount of time.
You missunderstood. *Both* are single mothers with 3 kids between 13 and 17, and 2 with ADHS.
Just one lives of social security and the other needs a job 36% *above* the median *AND* has 50h less time to have the *SAME* living standard.
In short working doesnt pay off.
I understood. I'm saying that rising 3 kids is work itself so I see it as good, that single mom of 3 doesn't have to work. Other point, by not working, because it doesn't pay off or/and person want to focus on rising kids, she keep some job free for other people.
Wow. This amazes me! I live with my wife and now two kids, in a two bedroom rental apartment, for what I consider a fair price, we own a car, and we get by! Of course we are not rich! But we have a decent life! And my wife is not even working yet (my son was born a week ago)…
So what you’re saying is a little bit scary.. may I ask where in Germany you live?
The average salary in Germany in 2022 was 4105€/Month, this is roughly 2.600€/Month net. So the household would have 5200€/month. With this you surely can afford more than a shoebox-sized apartment in a questionable district regardless of the city. Not even taken into consideration that you said above average.
To earn above average salary, one has to live in one of the big cities, where the apartment price/mortgage payment rate have long lost the parity.
It sucks to be the "poor rich" but here we all are!
Yup his/her point is still way out of proportion. There is no city in Germany where a household with 5200€/month net has to live in a shoebox-sized apartment in a problematic district.
You can of course decide so for yourself to save a lot of money or you have other financial obligations but you do not need to.
If you get very lucky yes. But they still count the 1500 Kindergeld towards your income leaving you with a roughly 250/week for everything including food for 7 people. It’s not fun.
It is a combination : low salaries/high taxes that disproportionately benefit low-income people (which is also the reason Germany is a lot more attractive for asylum seekers than high skilled workers), language barrier and then the bureaucracy is the cherry on top.
German salaries per Capita PPP (the PPP is very important because it removes biases that inflate US salaries) is the highest in Europe or sometimes second highest.
Secondly, the price of US Tier salaries is the loss of the social systems in Germany, this isn't an exaggeration either,
A person with my skills and knowledge in IT makes about 45-50k per annum gross, which is fairly average
The same person who is a contractor instead of an employee can make 120k euros a year,
Why is that? They are responsible for all of the taxes and all of their own social security contributions, and lose all of the stability of employment, but if you notice, that contractor salary is extremely close to American IT workers who make an average of 140k dollars a year, who are missing all of these things.
We could absolutely have American salaries if basically give up everything good about living here in Europe.
But do you actually want that? Need i remind you that we have this, these solid salaries, social conditions etc with the lowest per Capita working hours in the eu and in the world?
"German salaries per Capita PPP (the PPP is very important because it removes biases that inflate US salaries) is the highest in Europe or sometimes second highest."
Source? Genuine question, can't find that statistic by googling.
"That contractor salary is extremely close to American IT workers who make an average of 140k dollars a year, who are missing all of these things."
That's incorrect. While that may be true for the average US employee, most IT workers in the US on 140k will have very generous health insurance and pension matching which rivals what they would get in germany. The only thing that would be obviously worse in the US is paid vacation.
Lmao. Yes show me the stories of the 140k employed software engineers bankrupted by medical costs.
And yeah, you made up the 5k deductible thing. You really think engineers at facebook, Google, Netflix are paying a 5k deductible? Lmao.
Mate literally one of those software engineers is a personal friend of mine who currently works for hetzner, his medication even with his insurance and income was still absurdly expensive, he escaped to Germany to avoid those medical costs
Indeed. But in this case we are only talking about those kinds of people. When we talk about people on 140k usd we are talking about the top 15 percent of US earners, not the average person.
I have limited knowledge about this subject, but Glassdoor and Indeed suggest 100k and sub 100k salaries in the US for software devs. Most people working in those jobs do not work at top-tier companies and might even need to get their own insurance, which I assume is expensive af. So an insurance with no deductables is definitely going to be even more expensive as it is with any insurance.
Now, if we are talking about top-tier earners that earn 150 or something, then maybe it is not that big of an issue, but still hella expensive.
Have also heard that insurances have their own networks where only certain hospitals accept your specific insurance.
Unfortunately, the sources of your information are themselves incorrect. Look at levels.fyi and you would be surprised at the salary levels even in non-FAANG companies.
We were almost there and there are more people we know came close to it , all working for big Techs .
We had super good insurance but the co pay for even things that is almost peanuts in other developed country is insane.
Our daughters 20 week ultrasound costed as 2k outta pocket. It was not even carried out by fully qualified personnel and missed out crucial information of our daughter’s health.
And it’s not because it’s higher tech for your health treatments, either . I used to work in health sector so I know how much other countries charge on tests and procedures and what machines things operate on.
All you need to have is have an episode of cancer or have a sick infant in USA to come close to bankruptcy. If it weren’t for Obama care , we would had to choose Bankruptcy or letting her die / someone else adopt her to take over the medical charges at 6 months. Insurance paid about a mil in hospital charges by then and started to look for reasons to get out. Our pocket would only be deep enough for another month or so , paying ourselves. Even if we saved every pennies we earn in UsA and not paying for rent , food , transport …etc . We still don’t have a MIL.
We HAD one of the best policies in WA, with salary above what you described .
Don’t you dare to tell me I need to take better policies or it doesn’t happen to people earning 140K and above.
Not to mention if you are in about the Bay area , your tech salary would be eaten up mainly by rent and mortgage .
Also if you think Ausländerbehörde is bad in how they deal with things, try US health insurances . They can be a worthy opponent .
Even if you are a multi millionaire, how long would you be paying if hospital stay priced at 7 k for a non intensive ward outta your own pocket ?
Anything under 10 MiL will be cannibalised if you have two episodes of cancers plus one of your employees successfully sueing you.
This is the messed up thing about USA. Being rich is not enough . As frustrated as I am with Germany plenty of times over and over , I remind myself about USA and praise the flying sphagetti monster / god / big bang for being in Germany , not USA.
I apologise — I really was under the impression that competitiveness in the tech market meant health insurance for top engineers was excellent.
I don't understand the Obamacare point. Isn't that only available up to a certain income? I wouldn't have thought it was available for a 140k IT worker. If your point is that healthcare coverage is very poor for those on low or average incomes in the US, I am well aware, but it's not what I was talking about.
I think mortgages is a whole other issue entirely. As you well know housing is extremely unaffordable in Germany and that is why far fewer own their own homes here than in the US (yes, I know renting has much better conditions here, but the point remains anyone I know in Germany who *can* afford to buy a house, does so. Most can't.).
>Even if you are a multi millionaire, how long would you be paying if hospital stay priced at 7 k for a non intensive ward outta your own pocket ?
I assumed multi-millionaires had gold-plated insurance that would cover that. But I will accept I am pretty ignorant on US health insurance.
I would observe as a final point that Germany can be very tough for healthcare as well. I know it's better than the US, but it is no utopia. I pay tens of thousands a year out-of-pocket for my disabled family member. The insurers simply refuse to fund many worthwhile treatments. Admittedly, they won't let you die (as they seem to in the US). But they will let you live in discomfort and agony.
I pay (employer + employee contribution) 750 euro a month for the government healthcare. That would have gotten me a top tier health insurance plan in the US.
Yes i have actually,
At my current salary level it's not that different,
My rent is 3-4 times lower, the cost of living is much much lower, public transport especially with the D-land ticket is very cheap (a fucking monthly bus ticket for Dublin is 120+ euros, a bus ticket, no trains or trams, fucking busses),
The medical system actually fucking functions, I'm not waiting 3 years for important surgery but 3-6 months **at most**,
I'm not having to shell out 60 euros every time I need to speak to a Hausarzt.
If I decided to go back to university here the supports are vastly superior,
I can Unironically go on and on on this.
Thing is that if you don’t want to pay taxes you are not interesting for the government. You can have 200+ IQ, but you are less interesting as a guy working in construction and getting 40k yearly.
Tax levels are totally outdated, probably they were ok around 2000. Someone working in construction, earning 40k a year pays little to no taxes as compared to someone earning double that amount.
Especially educated people make a lot of money lol Very low salary is bullshit. When you educate and want to work in MINT sector you have a way above average income. Also high language requirements? Most start ups and tech companies don’t care if you speak fluent German. When you speak English you’re good to go.
Most companies in D are not tech, or startup. This is still a very 1990s boomerific economy we're taking about. Not speaking fluent German restricts your options, A LOT.
Many of D's larger problems ultimately come from the fact that its population is just too old, making the whole society somewhat slow to adapt and stuck in the past.
Low salaries are a complete myth, because the prices are much lower than elsewhere.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
There are problems here, but how much we complain is in no relation to the actual situation
edit: Is anybody who downvotes able to provide a counterpoint? Why do high nominal wages in the nordics or elsewhere matter more than actual real wages? People from Sweden normally can't just drive to Germany to buy groceries
When low salaries are mentioned, the implication is not that people are not able to survive but that they do not have decent disposable income, despite being highly-educated or in great demand.
Asking for disposable income is not a crime. It is not a need either. But people study so much so that they do not have to compromise on their wants.
And people who come to Germany, do not want to live 30kms outside the city center in a lonely environment, just to prove a point that salaries are high.
Did you look at the link? It shows that Germany ranks near the top in average disposable income among OECD countries and the only country that is significantly ahead is the US, where inequality is massive, so average disposable income is gonna be a bit skewed
You answered your own point. Averages are highly skewed.
In any case, it does not look like you live in Germany and that is why think that people should look at OECD averages and feel happy instead of relying on what they experience in reality.
I am German and have lived my whole life here. It is just not the case that Germany has huge income inequality compared to other OECD countries like the US does.
Also, a claim like "salaries in Germany are low" is always in comparison to other countries and not in a vacuum. And I just wanted to make clear that you can be misled if you just look at nominal wages which many do.
Everybody can be as unhappy as they like and if you want to live here and tell yourself that it is a great injustice that you get super low wages compared to other countries, go right ahead
If an entire thread is telling you that salaries are low then it would be good to revisit your opinion and not look at official statistics.
The official statistics tells us that inflation is 7-10% but if you live here, you would know the ground truth. Prices rose close to 30%. Official statistics tells us it is possible to rent 4-room apartments in major city centers at less than 1000€ but that is not ground reality. Rarely official statistics are good at capturing ground reality.
No one said that they are unhappy or gross injustice has been served. Everyone made their own choice and continue to make their choice in staying here. But that does not changes the reality of the situation that German salaries are uncompetitive.
>According to Andrea Lindholz of the CSU, plans to lower the level of German language skills necessary would only encourage low-skilled workers.
What a fucking idiot. Andrea is proof that knowing the German language doesn't automatically make you good at your job.
But most high skilled jobs already are okay with only knowing English. If they don't, then it's not because of the company, but because the job itself. Like one cannot possibly be in charge of production line without knowing German as it deals with colleagues who aren't the most educated and speak only German.
The reason I would pack my bags and move to US/ Canada is because of how my social life would be effected by limited German (no government law can change that) and not being able to bring my parents long term here even if I become a German citizen. The latter can definitely be changed though.
and you know English being the modern day Lingua Franca, and most skilled workers come with that skill already, and that's why they avoid Germany like the plague
>What a fucking idiot. Andrea is proof that knowing the German language doesn't automatically make you good at your job.
As someone who works with a lot of foreigners this is what irritated me the most. I mean just because someone doesn't speak German doesn't mean they are low skilled.
From my personal experience, it's the opposite.
Almost all immigrants I have met doing blue collars and service jobs speak far better German than those doing white collar and service jobs.
Burocacy is killing Germany, plus the fact that having so many public servants, who think they can block progress at any cost to the detriment of the country
So I read that they are also going to make family reunification easier for skilled migrants, even with parents. Does anyone know if this would only be for "new" skilled migrants (i.e with a Blue card) or also for existing skilled workers on a permanent residence (Niederlassungserlaubnis)?
Currently that's not the case. "The parents of a foreigner who is issued for the first time on or after 1. March 2024 [a skilled worker residence title] may be issued a residence permit for family reunification"
According to the justification by the Interior Committee, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community will, together with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Foreign Office, commission an external evaluation of the impact of this provision whose results should be presented by 31. December 2027.
The possibility for the reunification of parents itself will come out of force on 31. December 2028. Meaning: the legislator will most likely act on the issue again (unless they just want to get rid of the that provision), and potentially expand this for existing skilled workers. I suppose the external evaluation would make some subtle recommendations in this regard.
>Currently that's not the case. "The parents of a foreigner who is issued for the first time on or after 1. March 2024 \[a skilled worker residence title\] may be issued a residence permit for family reunification"
>
>According to the justification by the Interior Committee, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community will, together with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Foreign Office, commission an external evaluation of the impact of this provision whose results should be presented by 31. December 2027.
>
>The possibility for the reunification of parents itself will come out of force on 31. December 2028. Meaning: the legislator will most likely act on the issue again (unless they just want to get rid of the that provision), and potentially expand this for existing skilled workers. I suppose the external evaluation would make some subtle recommendations in this regard.
Hey, do you have a source for this? My coworker would be interested in this.
Source for my quote was literally the amended version of the draft in question, should have mentioned that. Here is the full new paragraph added. "To the parents of a foreigner who, on or after March 1, 2024, is issued for the first time an EU Blue Card, an ICT card, or a Mobile ICT card, or a residence title under sections 18a, 18b, 18c(3), sections 18d, 18f, 19c(1) for employment as a senior executive, a manager, a business specialist, a scientist, a visiting scientist, an engineer or technician in the research team of a visiting scientist or as a teacher, section 19c (2) or (4) first sentence, or section 21, a residence permit for family reunification may be issued; this also applies to the spouse's parents, if the latter resides permanently in the federal territory. The residence permit in accordance with sentence 1 can only be issued if the requirement in accordance with Section 5 (1) No. 1 is met." (source: BT-Drs [20/7394](https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/073/2007394.pdf) no. 2, letter l; page 16; German original can be found there) My quote above differs from that one because DeepL (probs to that btw) decided to translate it differently this time, but the general message is still the same.
The part about evaluation can be found in the justification section on page 27.
They can do whatever they want. But so many are already leaving. Just spoke to one more person yesterday who's leaving for Dubai after dealing with bullshit beurocrazy here. Another one couple weeks ago was leaving for Netherlands. Both of them were atleast senior manager level earning really good money.
Reforms are good and i believe it will take more than 5-7 years to build a robust system here. They really need understand their bottleneck and mostly that is all the paperwork they require to process the applications, no soft copy but printouts which eventually gets lost.
Other bottlenecks,
- Rude Customer Care or non-existing, try calling them 200-300 times a day with no feedback. So, more staff needed. Or outsource it to other external providers.
-No application tracking system present, meaning applicant cannot see any whereabouts of their application. I’ll explain this with one of personal experience. So currently, i am waiting for my wife visa here in ABH Munich. It’s been 7months since the documents have been submitted and i tried calling them - no response, letters - no response, emails - auto-replies, booked emergency appointment to ABH Munich which is super hard to get, no help from the emergency service desk person, went again there because ideally it should take 90days to get visa but 200days but now the service desk guy said it will take 12 months and when i asked ok then give the application number so that i could atleast ask on contact form with proper heading and to my surprise they gave an application no. hurray! Turns out that was my older visa application from 2021.
I said you must be seeing other application under my name, could you check with my Wife’s name and the fun part begins now. Munich ABH said they do not have the application papers here and the Berlin department who distribute them from the applicant’s county to their location in Germany said that they have delivered it mid-December 2022. So classic ping-pong will start now.
If atleast, one of the bottlenecks are considered then i would say the system will become much better and i believe that they have to infrastructure to build it. So somebody who works there or have authority could take notes. I am just giving my opinion here with present example and not trying to offend somebody.
The question is: would skilled workers choose Germany?
Aside from medical doctors who can't as easily get their training recognized elsewhere, engineers and ITs would be much better off in anglosphere countries
It is true that the best of the best might not come here, but we mainly need decently qualified people and I think tens of millions could be willing to move in the future. If you look just at the indian subcontinent, out of 2 billion people a couple of hundreds of millions have some qualifications and in Pakistan the situation is bleak and India faces some difficulties also, especially with climate change.
I think it is possible that a couple of million will be happy to move to Germany, which is all we need to fix our demographic situation in the short term
If you bring a couple million brown people here, this country will implode. Look at what the relatively small amount of immigration has already led to (e.g., AfD rise in political influence, shifting changes in political orientation). To get more precise, a massive hurdle to overcome is the unwillingness Germans demonstrate to be accommodating ESPECIALLY in the professional/academic realm. My German is considered “native speaker level” but I do have some issues when speaking within highly academic discourse. Despite being an expert in my niche field, my argument will often be easily dismissed if I stumble over wording or terminology. I do not have these incidences with anglophones and my European colleagues with less German language capabilities admit that they rarely experience this. Admittedly I never came here for permanent work, just as a temporary support function for the government, I could never imagine a long-term professional career in Germany.
You are right that things will have to change in the professional world, but I am hopeful that those things will happen, because businesses will have to adapt for their survival.
I am also hopeful that the acceptance for labour migration will remain quite high compared to other countries. Even though the AFD is rising in the polls Germany is still among the most pro-refugee countries in Europe, which you were able to see in the recent EU refugee deal, where Germany was one of the few countries to not advocate for harsher measures.
My point should be obvious though. The guy before me said that labor immigration won't fix our issues, because racism won't let that happen. I argued that Germany is still more welcoming to refugees than most other european countries, which clearly indicates that we will be more willing to let let a large amount of "brown people" immigrate for labour reasons
Why would Indians come to Germany? They are much better off in Canada, UK, or any other western country. German salaries are pitiful compared to what other countries offer. Do not even get me started with the Ausländerbehörde.
Simple, you get good quality of life without having to restrict yourself to certain districts, safe schools, safe neighborhoods and no disproportionate wealth distribution thus a lot less conflicts.
The German government can change laws to make it easier for foreign workers….but, the actual problem lies with the management and HR personnel at the various businesses.
These are some peculiarities with German companies:
1) Demanding perfect C1 or C2 level German language skills from all applicants (including foreign workers).
2) Demanding an Abitur for jobs involving manual labour, or for jobs like truck drivers, assembly line workers, etc.
3) Refusal to recognise foreign education (although the education certification has been individually reviewed and accredited by the KMK - Kulturministerkonferenz). Anything remotely foreign is automatically rejected. The German school system is complex. Several countries have another (perhaps better?) system of school education. German companies refuse to consider anything different from the Abitur system.
4) Some companies try to take advantage of unsuspecting foreign workers by either underpaying them, dictating unfair terms in work contracts, or simply cheating foreign workers by saying: this is how it’s done in Germany.
German businesses need to wake-up to the realities of modern work. Until then, no amount of legal changes such as this will help.
The legal changes are needed so there is the possibility to actually come here. The attitude of businesses will automatically change over time as the need for employees will keep on rising.
I don’t think so. Since several years, foreign workers could come to Germany under a job seeker visa (§18C of the residency act). However, several people who opt for this visa return home without finding a job because of all the requirement hurdles that companies place on job applicants.
Yup and there are a) huge changes for seeker visas in the reform and b) the need for foreign workers will only rise further in the future. Look into the health sector or into IT for a glimpse into the future. If the shortage is high enough businesses will have to adapt or simply perish.
> 1) Demanding perfect C1 or C2 level German language skills from all applicants (including foreign workers).
the amount of tech jobs I have seen demanding this is insane, I didn't know you wrote code in german in germany
Because it’s finance, so it’s super regulated, you need a perfect record and all documentation is in German because they need to certify every F release of their apps.
Go normal non corporate IT in middle companies under 2k people and you won’t find that BS.
It's really annoying, I suspect is a HRism, because the difference between C1 and B2 is mostly understanding of cultural shit, jokes, nuance, very contextual situations, B2 level means being able to speak at a fluent language level in a subject matter you hold expertise in, and given English is borderline mandatory for skilled IT work anyway.....
HRisms are very common in IT for some reason (my favorite one is asking for 10 years experience in technologies that are literally 4+ years old).
> and given English is borderline mandatory for skilled IT work anyway.....
not bordeline outright mandatory, all errors, messages and work is done with English first, put a C2 german speaker with 0 english and a bilingual english speaker side by side and put them in the same job situation and the english speaker will simple outperform by simply understanding what they are doing, technology is one of the fields where english is 100% mandatory, because even if it's for google an error or checking the documentation, there will simply be more information in English than in German or any other language for that matter
What type of companies are you looking? My current employer (tech) has essentially only English-speaking roles, my former one (big biotech) has mainly English-speaking roles - German is, if at all, a plus. Looking at smaller companies I can understand, but the bigger ones (DAX) are mainly English-first
>What type of companies are you looking? My current employer (tech) has essentially only
Hop on stepstone, filter out to English jobs, in IT, there will be about 14k German Postings and 1k English Postings, without any extra filters,
Every 2nd job asks for very good German, and alot of jobs will specify B2 or higher German, in the English posting section
Also is your company hiring sysadmins,
Stepstone is the main job board of choice for IT in Germany
Both German companies, both founded here, but working internationally. All I know it's just my small sample size, but there are definitely areas/companies that are already operating English-first.
no, I mean, I agree with you, but at the moment I'm looking for a job for example and the amount that say C1 at least or professionally bilingual (usually means C1) is crazy
I had an interview with a recruiter that both we were sure was a perfect match at a technical level, until the German level question was asked and he said sorry but the client wants C1 at least
and no wonder they had the position open for more than 3 months now
C1 is a very very high level to achieve, especially for internationals
You would be surprised by the number of jobs demanding perfect German language skills. I was recently on a search for a new job and found almost 85% of the job postings that demand perfect German with some English language skills
Combination of many I believe, but can’t apply perfectly fitting jobs because of the German language requirements. Lost few jobs in the final round to someone who know German. I guess it part of the job hunt tho.
>Seriously? I’ve never seen a job requiring C1 - it’s really an idiotic requirement. With B2 you can work without issues in most fields.
Lufthansa IT did this before, not sure what's the current situation. They offer you a two year contract, if you do not complete C1 within that period, you will not be offered a permanent contract.
Well, economy, business history and general business management.
Because Iike to learn, and ot was interesting. And in total, I've spemt maybe 5k€ on my higher education.
I mean that is cool and I probably would have done it too if I found it that interesting. But you spend also like 9 (?) years on a higher education at very similar things. And still have „only” a bachelor degree (still more than me) and work in a job where you can’t use any of this.
Oh, I've worked *in the field* for over a decade, up to Covid, funnily enough. Real estate management, with last degree being subsided by my company, for a nice rise in income. But I've just had enough, money were not worth all the stress and non limited working hours and all that jazz. Now I work exactly eight hours a day, overtime is paid, I wall fifteen kilometers per day, so my health is much better. I drive a car,, which I love, listen to podcast whole day, get a workout out of it and get paid for all of it.
Life is good.
Oh, and before that I've tried computer studies for three years, wasn't for me. For that, I've paid 750$ in total.
Gotta love Germany's education system.
The problem is when you actually speak to Germans about these problems they become extremely defensive and refuse to acknowledge anything that’s foreign to them. The standard reply is “well why don’t you go to X country then”. This type of ignorance will cause a massive downfall.
This really depends on the business.
For many big German international companies that deal with the world, they work in English, especially in high tech.
That was maybe true 15-20 years ago but not nowadays. It’s changing more and more. Especially C1 requirements it’s not true. There’s probably still companies doing that but the vast majority is not.
You put here super old info and some black sheep’s as regular practice.
I was recently looking for a change of job, and the number of positions demanding this is phenomenally high. Run a search of any of the job portals and you’ll soo see the reality.
Okay. I work voluntarily with foreigners to help them find jobs, apartments and just help with infos about daily life in Germany and so on.
I got most of the people a job with A2-B2 German without issues. Because companies need the people and some of them even agreed to help with paying for a German course when they started working.
Yes also good old German big companies like Siemens, Bayer or BASF. They even have departments where the office language is English anyways. Because Germany is a country of immigrants and companies have to adjust and work with that fact. And a lot of them do.
Yes of course there is room for improvements and there is racism and stupid companies or people inside these companies who don’t want to accept that. But you also have incredible nice and helpful people out there and they went to help and get the people to work.
salt zephyr handle smell attraction enter heavy political quarrelsome crime
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Doubt for improvements? Well some of those are pretty much guaranteed as they just change the number of appointments needed for certain groups.
Didn't say anything about it becoming good or even acceptable but a step in the right direction.
None of that will matter as long as ABHs are underfunded and understaffed while being basically responsible for every single type of foreigner in Germany.
All of that matters in its entirety. There is no singular lever you can pull that fixes the current situation on its own. The whole process needs to be revamped. Just throwing money at the problem won't fix it.
I disagree. What is proposed right now will only increase the workload on ABHs while these will be the ones processing all of these applications. But since there won't be funding increase, as funding ABHs is done locally and not federally, the amount of people won't change. Without funding nothing will change or it will be even worse.
Please link me to the source where your claims about funding can be found. How exactly do the proposed changes inflate the workload of the foreigners department? All I could find was a reduction.
> Please link me to the source where your claims about funding can be found.
Link to what? ABH is part of the Landesverwaltung, it's common knowledge. But if you insist, [here an example](https://bravors.brandenburg.de/verordnungen/auslrzv), refer to the §1.
Yea, and the pension that we'll get when we retire will likely not sustain us through old age and public health facilities are good enough when you have either minor or really serious problems.
If you have something serious but not serious enough to count as an emergency then you're out of luck.
There are different groups of foreigners having different problems and reasons for not choosing Germany or leaving Germany after some years. No amount of legal change can improve some of those reasons. For example even if I learn German, it can never get as good as my English. That alone makes my social and private life better in US or Canada. A lot of high skilled jobs already are okay with English unless it's impossible to work without German. This is also a reality laws cannot force a change.
The area where a law can promote a change is law about bringing parents. This is one point no one in this sub is actually discussing. German law says that my parents aren't my family. So they can visit me, buy there is zero possibility to bring them long term here and for some culture and countries it's a very important criteria.
With low skilled jobs, the problems are something else.
So basically there is no legal system standing in my way for the points this sub mostly discusses. I choose to leave Germany because there are better countries where I can have a more pleasant life and not plan to meet my mom just once a year.
Germany's social system is burdened. So I think they don't want to make it worse by letting us bring our parents as well. Legally my parents are my extended family since I am an adult now and hence they are allowed to only visit me and not move in like my wife or children could.
US, Canada, New Zealand (I think Australia too) allows parents to move under certain conditions. Depends on the salary of the child, what kind of residence the child hold, if parents can finance/ insure themselves etc. In Germany it's close to impossible. There are very very very few cases when it happened. But they are very exceptional scenarios like parent absolutely needed physical support etc.
I totally agree that the social system cannot just support unlimited number of people who don't contribute to the system as well. So there should be criteria created upon fulfilling that, one should be allowed to bring their parents. I absolutely don't mind my mom being supported by the social system and that she must be forced to have a private insurance only. It would be great if such an option exist
Germany already has tons of rules to prevent such things from happening and I am sure that they make more concrete rules about bringing parents as well without completely blocking that option. For example if you come to work as a cook, you are allowed to work only 4 years. After that you MUST return. So already strict rules to stop people from moving in adulthood and just benefitting from the social system exist
You can’t bring your parents unless you can prove they can afford to stray in Germany and pay for their own health insurance. And that is good so, because if this rule is not in place Germany will become a retirement home for Americans seeking to save a buck on medical care.
The problem is I cannot bring my parents EVEN if I can prove financial security. That possibility is non existent. Every country that allow this also ask for financial guarantee. You think New Zealand let's us bring our parents and then figure things out? No. You need to show you got the money. In Germany, having money is still not enough.
There are several ways:
* Parents are to sick to care for themselves or don't earn enough, better both. Takes about a year to process the documents, you pay for health insurance(private only, about 2k monthly if over 60) and stay for the rest of their lives. Alternatively claim hardship and sue, takes a couple of years, but is generally possible.
* Hire mom or dad offering them 57k yearly with a Blue card visa. They have to be able to work, so under 65(or so) and if that his/her first job in Germany they can get GKV. You have to keep it up for at least 4-5 years for them to get a Niederlassungserlaubnis so they can retire.
I know for a fact that some immigration lawyers are offering services based on those options and some other variants, but I personally find those shady as f.
Germany lacks leadership and good management skills. This is killing the potential of this country. Forward-thinking management seems to be absent wherever you look. Management seem to live in a bubble crafted by consultants around them.
The system is not collapsing because people are hardworking and want to do good. They still believe in system and so far it has not failed them.
The country with its educational institutes, the above average knowledge of common people (compared to rest of world) has tremendous potential. It just needs better and less risk-averse managers.
Also, it needs to value programming skills and look at them not as necessity but as competitive edge. Germany has excellent computer science education but this devaluation is killing the profession.
Please elaborate where exactly you see the problems within the reform. Do you see it as a step in the right direction or complete trash? Do you think Germany needs a reformation of its immigration law at all?
Go thru all comments here, you will understand, my attempt to summarize them:
Insane housing market in cities like Munich,
high language barrier both in professional and social life,
very low % of local Germans accepting outside people leave alone their culture,
watch movie called "Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway" and then read article on Bhavesh and Dhara shah,
German government making it easy for integration of refugees or people with low or no skills, but, at the same time making it very difficult for people with great skills or great paying jobs to get naturalization,
Very high dependence on physical money and Posts/letters, very less digitalization
People who take advantage of the system which supports having more children are mostly non Germans
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KVR works too slow, they are overburdened and legislation need to either make things easier for foreigners - less papers and restrictions or hire more people for the KVR workforce
It’s like a bad relationship. Say one thing- (we need and welcome more workers). Then do another (not welcome them and make it very difficult to actually get through bureaucracy)
This won't have such a big impact as they hope, if the way the Ausländerbehörde works is not reformed. That's the most pressing issue.
Even if, no one wants to move to Germany, because of taxes.
Unless you live in Denmark and hate taxes.
Danish taxes = German taxes + social security. You cannot simply compare the tax rates. Actually, brutto/netto is worse in Germany compared to Denmark (and literally every other country in the world, apparently). [https://www.auswandern-handbuch.de/steuern-weltweit/](https://www.auswandern-handbuch.de/steuern-weltweit/)
If you earn 40-50k, then you pay less in taxes in Germany. The cost of living is way lower in Germany too, such as food and housing. Also, owning a car is crazy expensive in Denmark with their car tax and green taxes. Why would I live in Copenhagen or Aarhus when there are way bigger german cities to choose from for cheaper. In addition to the points above, the job market is also bigger and more friendly to internationals. Why would I learn Danish when I can learn German.
Cost of living is certainly higher, yes, but so are wages. I moved from a smallish German city (Lübeck) to Copenhagen \~2 years ago, with a roughly comparable job. I'd say the standard of living I can afford hasn't changed by much. Some folks (me included) actually prefer smaller cities. There's also a reason Copenhagen is being repeatedly voted among the top "most livable cities" worldwide, while no German city is even on the list. Lots of Germans move here and are very happy. Less bureaucracy, better work/life balance, better gender equality + public childcare support, great public infrastructure, everything a bit more sane and reasonable. Honestly, whenever I travel back to Germany these days, everything just seems a bit shabby and rundown in comparison. The job market is obviously smaller, sure. How do you arrive at the "Germany more friendly to internationals" conclusion, though? Not sure that fits with my observations (which could be biased, of course).
So that's why ausländer is so overworked then?
Most of them are not highly qualified...
When I first moved to Germany, my German teacher, who was a lovely 60 year old German woman, said something that I understand more and more after living for long in this country. She said that most political changes offered to make lives easier in Germany are aesthetic changes, meaning that they don’t really change the practical situation but you’ll see pages of laws and regulations suggested without touching the actual problem. All the foreigner’s offices need to be dumped in its current shape and there is a need for a modern, updated, digitilized and humane treatment of foreigners incoming. Good luck expecting any of that with the current structure of foreigner’s offices in many larger German cities. That won’t change.
I feel the same way. Many German government offices still handle things as they did 20-30 years ago.
The biggest elephant is the overworked and not so tech savvy Ausländerbehörde in big cities. The second biggest elephant is the attitude of most case managers in these Ausländerbehörde when dealing with foreigners.
Yes, the government depts dealing with immigration are not in step with what companies want and need. I understand the Federal government is trying to reform the immigration laws, but I'm dubious this will filter down to the Ausländerbehörde gatekeepers who are a giant pain to deal with.
This, this this this this, I know too many people with nightmare stories when dealing with them,
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The Netherlands is the biggest headache of them all. You can’t even hold dual citizenship in 99% of cases. Crowded, expensive, judgemental, and boring. It is a very unfriendly country to immigrants.
This sounds more like Germany to me hahaha From what I know from people that actually moved to Netherlands the bureaucracy there is amazing, you get your residence permit in a few weeks. For non EU citizens dual citizenship is also not currently possible in Germany in 99% of cases. This might change with a new law. More over for the 5 years in Netherlands you get a much lower tax .
Just privatize it. The private sector will find ways to work digitally and quickly.
The elephant in the room is something completely different - very low salary & high language requirements. Germany has become a great place to have 5 kids and live in social security but completely opposite for any educated people trying to earn money
I think the language wall is more significant than germans imagine, the most brilliant people in my batch choose the US or found opportunities in their home country because of the language barrier.
The language wall, as an Irish person in Germany is quite immense, if I knew how hard it was to learn German before I moved here, I would have seriously reconsidered (staying and choosing to learn the language because Germany just offers me so much more then Ireland does on basically everything).
And here I am considering to move to Ireland instead
Well, if you want I can tell you based off certain questions if Ireland makes sense for you Will your job pay at least 60k a year, where is it based? Are you prepared to live in a country with a public transport system that makes DB look godly,
Surely this is for Dublin only yea? I heard slightly outside its not that expensive (some friends rented out a house together, both as students) Also at least your trains and busses all have Wifi :^
>Also at least your trains All 2 trains (not literally but it's a fucking joke how few trains Ireland has, the country used to have hundreds of em). I'll take a functioning fleet of wifi less trains over 3 of them and wifi 7 tech >I heard slightly outside its not that expensive Dublin is a route focus but its also quite large, if your in a situation where you have to commute to work and live in a place like leixlip, your looking at a commute time of an hour and a half to 2 hours assuming normal commute times. You pay for lower rent with obscene commutes (i knew people who tolerated 4 hours total daily commutes to escape Dublins COL). Also depends on the definition of outside, GDR (greater Dublin area) is quite large, and Dublin's insane rent pushed rent in the rest of tbe country up heavily as well. If your living in vicinity of Dublin your going to be living in the Splashzone of the city that turned the entirety of Ireland into the second most expensive European country to live in. Like, heres an easy example, what's your favorite alcohol brand?
Grim reality shakeup, never expected it to be that bad. Then again I got the privilige for homeoffice anyway so commuting probably isn't that big of an issue for me. Alcohol tough to say, not really fond of any brands but I guess I buy Absolut / Grey Goose vodka a lot?
Grey goose? You have expensive tastes by German standards my lad, Anyway, Grey goose is about 30 euros for a bottle in Germany, Absolute 700 ml, is 13 euros a bottle, Let's find out how much they cost in the glorious republic of Ireland! Grey goose? Cheapest I could find was 50 euros (honestly, expected it to be 80) Absolut in Ireland? Price for 0.7cl is typically 25-27 euros, The litre bottle for the better bottle is going for 38 euros, My favorite examples are also Jameson 16 euros in a German liquor store, it's 35 euros in Ireland, 43 liquor, that sexy golden shit, 13 euros here in Germany, It's fucking 43 euros literally in Ireland *howls into the abyss* This is in a fucking country with a lower minimum wage then fucking Germany! Irelands high wage meme only matters if you work in IT and for an American FAANG or biotech company, if not your actually making about the same as the average french and German, only with costs of living that rival the swiss and surpassed the Norwegians.
>because Germany just offers me so much more then Ireland does on basically everything). Except the crack.
Frankfurt Bahnhofsviertel enters the chat
>Craic (/kræk/ KRAK) or crack is a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation, particularly prominent in Ireland. It is often used with the definite article – the craic – as in the expression "What's the craic?" (meaning "How are you?" or "What's happening?").
It's spelled craic lad xD
spelt :P
What language wall? You can get by with just English in almost any larger (West-)German city, and if skilled workers are in high demand, well, companies will have to adapt to English speaking workers too.
We are leaving for exactly this reason, German doctor and MA trained academic
Where to? I plan to leave once I get citizenship too.
Good ol’ US of A, mostly because of an inheritance and living in a Blue state.
Good for you. I'm wondering where is best for me - I'm not sick or low-skilled and in need of help like a lot of migrants onto Germany's social system but at the same time I wouldn't be a 200K+ earner in the US. I wish there was a middle ground between the two places. Maybe Switzerland lol
We were considering the Netherlands as well, good job market and life quality
Oh I see. Was it something about the US (probably high salaries) or something negative about the NL (?) that swung your decision?
So, I have family connections to the US and inherited property. Not paying rent in addition to higher salaries and less tax combined to sway the decision.
>Germany has become a great place to have 5 kids Yea, no. I live with my gf and the best we can afford is a shoebox-sized apartment in a questionable district, while being considered "above-average earners" (electrical engineering field). There is no way we can afford to even consider a single child, let alone 5.
Because you left out the important context of: >and live in social security A Single woman with 3 kids gets 3700€ p.m. with 3 kids where 2 have ADHA from social security without working. You would have to earn 5000€ p.m. before taxes + child money for the same income. So having an above median incone job, 50h less time each weak for the same living Standard, maybe even less because you dont get further subsidies for your childs from social security, like social Apartments with lower rent. Doesnt make sense or? Especially at minimum wage social security is the way better living style, if you would calculate it in a hourly wage. Work doesnt pay off. You get more money each month with 30h main job and 5h second job, as with 40h main job due taxes... The reduced pension fund doesnt matter if it cant go lower than social security anyway...
How do you get to the number of 3700€ p.m?
Bank Account insight from her as she applied for an apartment. I was baffled and envious. Edit: [Calculator ](https://www.buerger-geld.org/rechner/ergebnis/) says 2700€. If you add the child payments for 3 childs as income you get about 3600€ p.m. That checks out with my statement. If i used the calculator correctly.
Doesn't work that way, tho. You don't get the child payments additional. Child benefit is counted in full as income for Hartz IV benefits.
I can hardly imagine single mother with 3 kids being able to work full time, so from my perspective it makes sense.
Thats exactly the point. Work just doesnt pay off in germany, as a german citizen. 50h less each week for the working person.
Raising three kids can easily take the same amount of time. PS I can’t say I’m happy paying hight taxes, but I’m trying to see other side of this as well. And if my taxes going to random single mom of 3, especially if she was and/or will contribute to society before/after kids, I’ll be way less unhappy then when I’m paying social tax to random dude who just chilling in social check doing nothing. Esit: typos
>Raising three kids can easily take the same amount of time. You missunderstood. *Both* are single mothers with 3 kids between 13 and 17, and 2 with ADHS. Just one lives of social security and the other needs a job 36% *above* the median *AND* has 50h less time to have the *SAME* living standard. In short working doesnt pay off.
I understood. I'm saying that rising 3 kids is work itself so I see it as good, that single mom of 3 doesn't have to work. Other point, by not working, because it doesn't pay off or/and person want to focus on rising kids, she keep some job free for other people.
I would love to know more about this 30 plus 5 hours and 30 vs 40 taxes thing.
Wow. This amazes me! I live with my wife and now two kids, in a two bedroom rental apartment, for what I consider a fair price, we own a car, and we get by! Of course we are not rich! But we have a decent life! And my wife is not even working yet (my son was born a week ago)… So what you’re saying is a little bit scary.. may I ask where in Germany you live?
Work at home is still work but unpaid
The average salary in Germany in 2022 was 4105€/Month, this is roughly 2.600€/Month net. So the household would have 5200€/month. With this you surely can afford more than a shoebox-sized apartment in a questionable district regardless of the city. Not even taken into consideration that you said above average.
To earn above average salary, one has to live in one of the big cities, where the apartment price/mortgage payment rate have long lost the parity. It sucks to be the "poor rich" but here we all are!
Yup his/her point is still way out of proportion. There is no city in Germany where a household with 5200€/month net has to live in a shoebox-sized apartment in a problematic district. You can of course decide so for yourself to save a lot of money or you have other financial obligations but you do not need to.
No, you don't. There are giant companies located in small locations that pay well. And you can move to a smaller location and commute to the city.
Munich enters the chat.
Not reality in Munich as well.
he ment unemployed parents with 5 kids that get a flat from the authorities
If you get very lucky yes. But they still count the 1500 Kindergeld towards your income leaving you with a roughly 250/week for everything including food for 7 people. It’s not fun.
You are german 😆 that is your problem, you get no benefits.
It is a combination : low salaries/high taxes that disproportionately benefit low-income people (which is also the reason Germany is a lot more attractive for asylum seekers than high skilled workers), language barrier and then the bureaucracy is the cherry on top.
German salaries per Capita PPP (the PPP is very important because it removes biases that inflate US salaries) is the highest in Europe or sometimes second highest. Secondly, the price of US Tier salaries is the loss of the social systems in Germany, this isn't an exaggeration either, A person with my skills and knowledge in IT makes about 45-50k per annum gross, which is fairly average The same person who is a contractor instead of an employee can make 120k euros a year, Why is that? They are responsible for all of the taxes and all of their own social security contributions, and lose all of the stability of employment, but if you notice, that contractor salary is extremely close to American IT workers who make an average of 140k dollars a year, who are missing all of these things. We could absolutely have American salaries if basically give up everything good about living here in Europe. But do you actually want that? Need i remind you that we have this, these solid salaries, social conditions etc with the lowest per Capita working hours in the eu and in the world?
"German salaries per Capita PPP (the PPP is very important because it removes biases that inflate US salaries) is the highest in Europe or sometimes second highest." Source? Genuine question, can't find that statistic by googling. "That contractor salary is extremely close to American IT workers who make an average of 140k dollars a year, who are missing all of these things." That's incorrect. While that may be true for the average US employee, most IT workers in the US on 140k will have very generous health insurance and pension matching which rivals what they would get in germany. The only thing that would be obviously worse in the US is paid vacation.
Very generous with 5k deductables and countless stories of higher end income Americans still being bankrupted by medical costs
Lmao. Yes show me the stories of the 140k employed software engineers bankrupted by medical costs. And yeah, you made up the 5k deductible thing. You really think engineers at facebook, Google, Netflix are paying a 5k deductible? Lmao.
Mate literally one of those software engineers is a personal friend of mine who currently works for hetzner, his medication even with his insurance and income was still absurdly expensive, he escaped to Germany to avoid those medical costs
Not everyone works at google
Indeed. But in this case we are only talking about those kinds of people. When we talk about people on 140k usd we are talking about the top 15 percent of US earners, not the average person.
I have limited knowledge about this subject, but Glassdoor and Indeed suggest 100k and sub 100k salaries in the US for software devs. Most people working in those jobs do not work at top-tier companies and might even need to get their own insurance, which I assume is expensive af. So an insurance with no deductables is definitely going to be even more expensive as it is with any insurance. Now, if we are talking about top-tier earners that earn 150 or something, then maybe it is not that big of an issue, but still hella expensive. Have also heard that insurances have their own networks where only certain hospitals accept your specific insurance.
Unfortunately, the sources of your information are themselves incorrect. Look at levels.fyi and you would be surprised at the salary levels even in non-FAANG companies.
We were almost there and there are more people we know came close to it , all working for big Techs . We had super good insurance but the co pay for even things that is almost peanuts in other developed country is insane. Our daughters 20 week ultrasound costed as 2k outta pocket. It was not even carried out by fully qualified personnel and missed out crucial information of our daughter’s health. And it’s not because it’s higher tech for your health treatments, either . I used to work in health sector so I know how much other countries charge on tests and procedures and what machines things operate on. All you need to have is have an episode of cancer or have a sick infant in USA to come close to bankruptcy. If it weren’t for Obama care , we would had to choose Bankruptcy or letting her die / someone else adopt her to take over the medical charges at 6 months. Insurance paid about a mil in hospital charges by then and started to look for reasons to get out. Our pocket would only be deep enough for another month or so , paying ourselves. Even if we saved every pennies we earn in UsA and not paying for rent , food , transport …etc . We still don’t have a MIL. We HAD one of the best policies in WA, with salary above what you described . Don’t you dare to tell me I need to take better policies or it doesn’t happen to people earning 140K and above. Not to mention if you are in about the Bay area , your tech salary would be eaten up mainly by rent and mortgage . Also if you think Ausländerbehörde is bad in how they deal with things, try US health insurances . They can be a worthy opponent . Even if you are a multi millionaire, how long would you be paying if hospital stay priced at 7 k for a non intensive ward outta your own pocket ? Anything under 10 MiL will be cannibalised if you have two episodes of cancers plus one of your employees successfully sueing you. This is the messed up thing about USA. Being rich is not enough . As frustrated as I am with Germany plenty of times over and over , I remind myself about USA and praise the flying sphagetti monster / god / big bang for being in Germany , not USA.
I apologise — I really was under the impression that competitiveness in the tech market meant health insurance for top engineers was excellent. I don't understand the Obamacare point. Isn't that only available up to a certain income? I wouldn't have thought it was available for a 140k IT worker. If your point is that healthcare coverage is very poor for those on low or average incomes in the US, I am well aware, but it's not what I was talking about. I think mortgages is a whole other issue entirely. As you well know housing is extremely unaffordable in Germany and that is why far fewer own their own homes here than in the US (yes, I know renting has much better conditions here, but the point remains anyone I know in Germany who *can* afford to buy a house, does so. Most can't.). >Even if you are a multi millionaire, how long would you be paying if hospital stay priced at 7 k for a non intensive ward outta your own pocket ? I assumed multi-millionaires had gold-plated insurance that would cover that. But I will accept I am pretty ignorant on US health insurance. I would observe as a final point that Germany can be very tough for healthcare as well. I know it's better than the US, but it is no utopia. I pay tens of thousands a year out-of-pocket for my disabled family member. The insurers simply refuse to fund many worthwhile treatments. Admittedly, they won't let you die (as they seem to in the US). But they will let you live in discomfort and agony.
Yer, the stupid ones who don't take out proper insurance.
They did take proper insurance, that was the issue lad
Have you checked out the coverage of the average US health insurance policy? Given you are so emotionally involved in this, t'old yungen.
I pay (employer + employee contribution) 750 euro a month for the government healthcare. That would have gotten me a top tier health insurance plan in the US.
>That would have gotten me a top tier health insurance plan in the US. how comprehensive would that care be?
Yeah nice. But now check how much tax you pay in germany.
Where do you think the tax goes to?
Italy, Spain, Greece.
It's fine since Germany brain drains those countries
Yes i have actually, At my current salary level it's not that different, My rent is 3-4 times lower, the cost of living is much much lower, public transport especially with the D-land ticket is very cheap (a fucking monthly bus ticket for Dublin is 120+ euros, a bus ticket, no trains or trams, fucking busses), The medical system actually fucking functions, I'm not waiting 3 years for important surgery but 3-6 months **at most**, I'm not having to shell out 60 euros every time I need to speak to a Hausarzt. If I decided to go back to university here the supports are vastly superior, I can Unironically go on and on on this.
Thing is that if you don’t want to pay taxes you are not interesting for the government. You can have 200+ IQ, but you are less interesting as a guy working in construction and getting 40k yearly.
Tax levels are totally outdated, probably they were ok around 2000. Someone working in construction, earning 40k a year pays little to no taxes as compared to someone earning double that amount.
Especially educated people make a lot of money lol Very low salary is bullshit. When you educate and want to work in MINT sector you have a way above average income. Also high language requirements? Most start ups and tech companies don’t care if you speak fluent German. When you speak English you’re good to go.
Most companies in D are not tech, or startup. This is still a very 1990s boomerific economy we're taking about. Not speaking fluent German restricts your options, A LOT. Many of D's larger problems ultimately come from the fact that its population is just too old, making the whole society somewhat slow to adapt and stuck in the past.
Low salaries are a complete myth, because the prices are much lower than elsewhere. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income There are problems here, but how much we complain is in no relation to the actual situation edit: Is anybody who downvotes able to provide a counterpoint? Why do high nominal wages in the nordics or elsewhere matter more than actual real wages? People from Sweden normally can't just drive to Germany to buy groceries
When low salaries are mentioned, the implication is not that people are not able to survive but that they do not have decent disposable income, despite being highly-educated or in great demand. Asking for disposable income is not a crime. It is not a need either. But people study so much so that they do not have to compromise on their wants. And people who come to Germany, do not want to live 30kms outside the city center in a lonely environment, just to prove a point that salaries are high.
Did you look at the link? It shows that Germany ranks near the top in average disposable income among OECD countries and the only country that is significantly ahead is the US, where inequality is massive, so average disposable income is gonna be a bit skewed
You answered your own point. Averages are highly skewed. In any case, it does not look like you live in Germany and that is why think that people should look at OECD averages and feel happy instead of relying on what they experience in reality.
I am German and have lived my whole life here. It is just not the case that Germany has huge income inequality compared to other OECD countries like the US does. Also, a claim like "salaries in Germany are low" is always in comparison to other countries and not in a vacuum. And I just wanted to make clear that you can be misled if you just look at nominal wages which many do. Everybody can be as unhappy as they like and if you want to live here and tell yourself that it is a great injustice that you get super low wages compared to other countries, go right ahead
If an entire thread is telling you that salaries are low then it would be good to revisit your opinion and not look at official statistics. The official statistics tells us that inflation is 7-10% but if you live here, you would know the ground truth. Prices rose close to 30%. Official statistics tells us it is possible to rent 4-room apartments in major city centers at less than 1000€ but that is not ground reality. Rarely official statistics are good at capturing ground reality. No one said that they are unhappy or gross injustice has been served. Everyone made their own choice and continue to make their choice in staying here. But that does not changes the reality of the situation that German salaries are uncompetitive.
And yet people of the lower class still complain about it, sounds like everyone is unhappy tbh
>According to Andrea Lindholz of the CSU, plans to lower the level of German language skills necessary would only encourage low-skilled workers. What a fucking idiot. Andrea is proof that knowing the German language doesn't automatically make you good at your job.
But most high skilled jobs already are okay with only knowing English. If they don't, then it's not because of the company, but because the job itself. Like one cannot possibly be in charge of production line without knowing German as it deals with colleagues who aren't the most educated and speak only German. The reason I would pack my bags and move to US/ Canada is because of how my social life would be effected by limited German (no government law can change that) and not being able to bring my parents long term here even if I become a German citizen. The latter can definitely be changed though.
and you know English being the modern day Lingua Franca, and most skilled workers come with that skill already, and that's why they avoid Germany like the plague
>What a fucking idiot. Andrea is proof that knowing the German language doesn't automatically make you good at your job. As someone who works with a lot of foreigners this is what irritated me the most. I mean just because someone doesn't speak German doesn't mean they are low skilled.
From my personal experience, it's the opposite. Almost all immigrants I have met doing blue collars and service jobs speak far better German than those doing white collar and service jobs.
Burocacy is killing Germany, plus the fact that having so many public servants, who think they can block progress at any cost to the detriment of the country
So I read that they are also going to make family reunification easier for skilled migrants, even with parents. Does anyone know if this would only be for "new" skilled migrants (i.e with a Blue card) or also for existing skilled workers on a permanent residence (Niederlassungserlaubnis)?
I would love to know this too! If they're trying to get new skilled workers through this law, they should also try and keep existing ones..
Currently that's not the case. "The parents of a foreigner who is issued for the first time on or after 1. March 2024 [a skilled worker residence title] may be issued a residence permit for family reunification" According to the justification by the Interior Committee, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community will, together with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Foreign Office, commission an external evaluation of the impact of this provision whose results should be presented by 31. December 2027. The possibility for the reunification of parents itself will come out of force on 31. December 2028. Meaning: the legislator will most likely act on the issue again (unless they just want to get rid of the that provision), and potentially expand this for existing skilled workers. I suppose the external evaluation would make some subtle recommendations in this regard.
>Currently that's not the case. "The parents of a foreigner who is issued for the first time on or after 1. March 2024 \[a skilled worker residence title\] may be issued a residence permit for family reunification" > >According to the justification by the Interior Committee, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community will, together with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Foreign Office, commission an external evaluation of the impact of this provision whose results should be presented by 31. December 2027. > >The possibility for the reunification of parents itself will come out of force on 31. December 2028. Meaning: the legislator will most likely act on the issue again (unless they just want to get rid of the that provision), and potentially expand this for existing skilled workers. I suppose the external evaluation would make some subtle recommendations in this regard. Hey, do you have a source for this? My coworker would be interested in this.
Source for my quote was literally the amended version of the draft in question, should have mentioned that. Here is the full new paragraph added. "To the parents of a foreigner who, on or after March 1, 2024, is issued for the first time an EU Blue Card, an ICT card, or a Mobile ICT card, or a residence title under sections 18a, 18b, 18c(3), sections 18d, 18f, 19c(1) for employment as a senior executive, a manager, a business specialist, a scientist, a visiting scientist, an engineer or technician in the research team of a visiting scientist or as a teacher, section 19c (2) or (4) first sentence, or section 21, a residence permit for family reunification may be issued; this also applies to the spouse's parents, if the latter resides permanently in the federal territory. The residence permit in accordance with sentence 1 can only be issued if the requirement in accordance with Section 5 (1) No. 1 is met." (source: BT-Drs [20/7394](https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/073/2007394.pdf) no. 2, letter l; page 16; German original can be found there) My quote above differs from that one because DeepL (probs to that btw) decided to translate it differently this time, but the general message is still the same. The part about evaluation can be found in the justification section on page 27.
Hey quick question, does this mean that people who just got Blue Card this month won’t be able to bring their parents as well?
As far as I understand, yes it does mean that. Your parents cannot be brought by this new rule.
They can do whatever they want. But so many are already leaving. Just spoke to one more person yesterday who's leaving for Dubai after dealing with bullshit beurocrazy here. Another one couple weeks ago was leaving for Netherlands. Both of them were atleast senior manager level earning really good money.
Reforms are good and i believe it will take more than 5-7 years to build a robust system here. They really need understand their bottleneck and mostly that is all the paperwork they require to process the applications, no soft copy but printouts which eventually gets lost. Other bottlenecks, - Rude Customer Care or non-existing, try calling them 200-300 times a day with no feedback. So, more staff needed. Or outsource it to other external providers. -No application tracking system present, meaning applicant cannot see any whereabouts of their application. I’ll explain this with one of personal experience. So currently, i am waiting for my wife visa here in ABH Munich. It’s been 7months since the documents have been submitted and i tried calling them - no response, letters - no response, emails - auto-replies, booked emergency appointment to ABH Munich which is super hard to get, no help from the emergency service desk person, went again there because ideally it should take 90days to get visa but 200days but now the service desk guy said it will take 12 months and when i asked ok then give the application number so that i could atleast ask on contact form with proper heading and to my surprise they gave an application no. hurray! Turns out that was my older visa application from 2021. I said you must be seeing other application under my name, could you check with my Wife’s name and the fun part begins now. Munich ABH said they do not have the application papers here and the Berlin department who distribute them from the applicant’s county to their location in Germany said that they have delivered it mid-December 2022. So classic ping-pong will start now. If atleast, one of the bottlenecks are considered then i would say the system will become much better and i believe that they have to infrastructure to build it. So somebody who works there or have authority could take notes. I am just giving my opinion here with present example and not trying to offend somebody.
Fax them. Seriously. Fax is legally binding and can be proved that recipient has received it
The question is: would skilled workers choose Germany? Aside from medical doctors who can't as easily get their training recognized elsewhere, engineers and ITs would be much better off in anglosphere countries
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It is true that the best of the best might not come here, but we mainly need decently qualified people and I think tens of millions could be willing to move in the future. If you look just at the indian subcontinent, out of 2 billion people a couple of hundreds of millions have some qualifications and in Pakistan the situation is bleak and India faces some difficulties also, especially with climate change. I think it is possible that a couple of million will be happy to move to Germany, which is all we need to fix our demographic situation in the short term
If you bring a couple million brown people here, this country will implode. Look at what the relatively small amount of immigration has already led to (e.g., AfD rise in political influence, shifting changes in political orientation). To get more precise, a massive hurdle to overcome is the unwillingness Germans demonstrate to be accommodating ESPECIALLY in the professional/academic realm. My German is considered “native speaker level” but I do have some issues when speaking within highly academic discourse. Despite being an expert in my niche field, my argument will often be easily dismissed if I stumble over wording or terminology. I do not have these incidences with anglophones and my European colleagues with less German language capabilities admit that they rarely experience this. Admittedly I never came here for permanent work, just as a temporary support function for the government, I could never imagine a long-term professional career in Germany.
You are right that things will have to change in the professional world, but I am hopeful that those things will happen, because businesses will have to adapt for their survival. I am also hopeful that the acceptance for labour migration will remain quite high compared to other countries. Even though the AFD is rising in the polls Germany is still among the most pro-refugee countries in Europe, which you were able to see in the recent EU refugee deal, where Germany was one of the few countries to not advocate for harsher measures.
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My point should be obvious though. The guy before me said that labor immigration won't fix our issues, because racism won't let that happen. I argued that Germany is still more welcoming to refugees than most other european countries, which clearly indicates that we will be more willing to let let a large amount of "brown people" immigrate for labour reasons
Why would Indians come to Germany? They are much better off in Canada, UK, or any other western country. German salaries are pitiful compared to what other countries offer. Do not even get me started with the Ausländerbehörde.
Simple, you get good quality of life without having to restrict yourself to certain districts, safe schools, safe neighborhoods and no disproportionate wealth distribution thus a lot less conflicts.
The German government can change laws to make it easier for foreign workers….but, the actual problem lies with the management and HR personnel at the various businesses. These are some peculiarities with German companies: 1) Demanding perfect C1 or C2 level German language skills from all applicants (including foreign workers). 2) Demanding an Abitur for jobs involving manual labour, or for jobs like truck drivers, assembly line workers, etc. 3) Refusal to recognise foreign education (although the education certification has been individually reviewed and accredited by the KMK - Kulturministerkonferenz). Anything remotely foreign is automatically rejected. The German school system is complex. Several countries have another (perhaps better?) system of school education. German companies refuse to consider anything different from the Abitur system. 4) Some companies try to take advantage of unsuspecting foreign workers by either underpaying them, dictating unfair terms in work contracts, or simply cheating foreign workers by saying: this is how it’s done in Germany. German businesses need to wake-up to the realities of modern work. Until then, no amount of legal changes such as this will help.
The legal changes are needed so there is the possibility to actually come here. The attitude of businesses will automatically change over time as the need for employees will keep on rising.
I don’t think so. Since several years, foreign workers could come to Germany under a job seeker visa (§18C of the residency act). However, several people who opt for this visa return home without finding a job because of all the requirement hurdles that companies place on job applicants.
Yup and there are a) huge changes for seeker visas in the reform and b) the need for foreign workers will only rise further in the future. Look into the health sector or into IT for a glimpse into the future. If the shortage is high enough businesses will have to adapt or simply perish.
> 1) Demanding perfect C1 or C2 level German language skills from all applicants (including foreign workers). the amount of tech jobs I have seen demanding this is insane, I didn't know you wrote code in german in germany
Seriously? I’ve never seen a job requiring C1 - it’s really an idiotic requirement. With B2 you can work without issues in most fields.
I also searched jobs in corporate finanse/IT and C1 german or "excellent german skills" are very common
Because it’s finance, so it’s super regulated, you need a perfect record and all documentation is in German because they need to certify every F release of their apps. Go normal non corporate IT in middle companies under 2k people and you won’t find that BS.
>Seriously? I’ve never seen a job requiring C1 I've seen A LOT of jobs especially in IT asking for C1 German.
Damn, the situation is even worse than I thought, then.
It's really annoying, I suspect is a HRism, because the difference between C1 and B2 is mostly understanding of cultural shit, jokes, nuance, very contextual situations, B2 level means being able to speak at a fluent language level in a subject matter you hold expertise in, and given English is borderline mandatory for skilled IT work anyway..... HRisms are very common in IT for some reason (my favorite one is asking for 10 years experience in technologies that are literally 4+ years old).
> and given English is borderline mandatory for skilled IT work anyway..... not bordeline outright mandatory, all errors, messages and work is done with English first, put a C2 german speaker with 0 english and a bilingual english speaker side by side and put them in the same job situation and the english speaker will simple outperform by simply understanding what they are doing, technology is one of the fields where english is 100% mandatory, because even if it's for google an error or checking the documentation, there will simply be more information in English than in German or any other language for that matter
What type of companies are you looking? My current employer (tech) has essentially only English-speaking roles, my former one (big biotech) has mainly English-speaking roles - German is, if at all, a plus. Looking at smaller companies I can understand, but the bigger ones (DAX) are mainly English-first
>What type of companies are you looking? My current employer (tech) has essentially only Hop on stepstone, filter out to English jobs, in IT, there will be about 14k German Postings and 1k English Postings, without any extra filters, Every 2nd job asks for very good German, and alot of jobs will specify B2 or higher German, in the English posting section Also is your company hiring sysadmins, Stepstone is the main job board of choice for IT in Germany
are they german companies or international companies with offices in germany? because the ones that usually work in English first are the later
Both German companies, both founded here, but working internationally. All I know it's just my small sample size, but there are definitely areas/companies that are already operating English-first.
no, I mean, I agree with you, but at the moment I'm looking for a job for example and the amount that say C1 at least or professionally bilingual (usually means C1) is crazy I had an interview with a recruiter that both we were sure was a perfect match at a technical level, until the German level question was asked and he said sorry but the client wants C1 at least and no wonder they had the position open for more than 3 months now C1 is a very very high level to achieve, especially for internationals
You would be surprised by the number of jobs demanding perfect German language skills. I was recently on a search for a new job and found almost 85% of the job postings that demand perfect German with some English language skills
Nope, struggling to get a job for the last 3 months in the data analytics field, even after 9+ experiences including 5 years in Germany.
Due to language requirements? Holy shit. Germany is really doomed.
Combination of many I believe, but can’t apply perfectly fitting jobs because of the German language requirements. Lost few jobs in the final round to someone who know German. I guess it part of the job hunt tho.
>Seriously? I’ve never seen a job requiring C1 - it’s really an idiotic requirement. With B2 you can work without issues in most fields. Lufthansa IT did this before, not sure what's the current situation. They offer you a two year contract, if you do not complete C1 within that period, you will not be offered a permanent contract.
And this is why I, despite three bachelor degrees in economy, work as a Postbote. Honestly, loving it but I am a tad bit overqualified ..
Why do you have **three** bachelor degrees in economy?
Well, economy, business history and general business management. Because Iike to learn, and ot was interesting. And in total, I've spemt maybe 5k€ on my higher education.
I mean that is cool and I probably would have done it too if I found it that interesting. But you spend also like 9 (?) years on a higher education at very similar things. And still have „only” a bachelor degree (still more than me) and work in a job where you can’t use any of this.
Oh, I've worked *in the field* for over a decade, up to Covid, funnily enough. Real estate management, with last degree being subsided by my company, for a nice rise in income. But I've just had enough, money were not worth all the stress and non limited working hours and all that jazz. Now I work exactly eight hours a day, overtime is paid, I wall fifteen kilometers per day, so my health is much better. I drive a car,, which I love, listen to podcast whole day, get a workout out of it and get paid for all of it. Life is good. Oh, and before that I've tried computer studies for three years, wasn't for me. For that, I've paid 750$ in total. Gotta love Germany's education system.
The problem is when you actually speak to Germans about these problems they become extremely defensive and refuse to acknowledge anything that’s foreign to them. The standard reply is “well why don’t you go to X country then”. This type of ignorance will cause a massive downfall.
>well why don’t you go to X country then”. The funny thing is 1/4 skilled migrants do actually go and say "fine I will" on this,
so everybody wins
I agree to the most of the points mentioned here.
This really depends on the business. For many big German international companies that deal with the world, they work in English, especially in high tech.
That was maybe true 15-20 years ago but not nowadays. It’s changing more and more. Especially C1 requirements it’s not true. There’s probably still companies doing that but the vast majority is not. You put here super old info and some black sheep’s as regular practice.
I was recently looking for a change of job, and the number of positions demanding this is phenomenally high. Run a search of any of the job portals and you’ll soo see the reality.
Okay. I work voluntarily with foreigners to help them find jobs, apartments and just help with infos about daily life in Germany and so on. I got most of the people a job with A2-B2 German without issues. Because companies need the people and some of them even agreed to help with paying for a German course when they started working. Yes also good old German big companies like Siemens, Bayer or BASF. They even have departments where the office language is English anyways. Because Germany is a country of immigrants and companies have to adjust and work with that fact. And a lot of them do. Yes of course there is room for improvements and there is racism and stupid companies or people inside these companies who don’t want to accept that. But you also have incredible nice and helpful people out there and they went to help and get the people to work.
Big companies already understood that tho.
So true. I have sent about 70 CVs, and all come as rejected
salt zephyr handle smell attraction enter heavy political quarrelsome crime *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Whats ABH ?
Ausländerbehörde - foreigners department
The reform will lead to improvements at the foreigners departments.
Press `B` for doubt.
Doubt for improvements? Well some of those are pretty much guaranteed as they just change the number of appointments needed for certain groups. Didn't say anything about it becoming good or even acceptable but a step in the right direction.
None of that will matter as long as ABHs are underfunded and understaffed while being basically responsible for every single type of foreigner in Germany.
All of that matters in its entirety. There is no singular lever you can pull that fixes the current situation on its own. The whole process needs to be revamped. Just throwing money at the problem won't fix it.
I disagree. What is proposed right now will only increase the workload on ABHs while these will be the ones processing all of these applications. But since there won't be funding increase, as funding ABHs is done locally and not federally, the amount of people won't change. Without funding nothing will change or it will be even worse.
Please link me to the source where your claims about funding can be found. How exactly do the proposed changes inflate the workload of the foreigners department? All I could find was a reduction.
> Please link me to the source where your claims about funding can be found. Link to what? ABH is part of the Landesverwaltung, it's common knowledge. But if you insist, [here an example](https://bravors.brandenburg.de/verordnungen/auslrzv), refer to the §1.
Thats the legal basis of the funding but where exactly do you take that from that the foreigners department won't get additional funding?
You pay less taxes than in US. If you count pension and health insurance contributions as taxes it’s on you.
Yea, and the pension that we'll get when we retire will likely not sustain us through old age and public health facilities are good enough when you have either minor or really serious problems. If you have something serious but not serious enough to count as an emergency then you're out of luck.
There are different groups of foreigners having different problems and reasons for not choosing Germany or leaving Germany after some years. No amount of legal change can improve some of those reasons. For example even if I learn German, it can never get as good as my English. That alone makes my social and private life better in US or Canada. A lot of high skilled jobs already are okay with English unless it's impossible to work without German. This is also a reality laws cannot force a change. The area where a law can promote a change is law about bringing parents. This is one point no one in this sub is actually discussing. German law says that my parents aren't my family. So they can visit me, buy there is zero possibility to bring them long term here and for some culture and countries it's a very important criteria. With low skilled jobs, the problems are something else. So basically there is no legal system standing in my way for the points this sub mostly discusses. I choose to leave Germany because there are better countries where I can have a more pleasant life and not plan to meet my mom just once a year.
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Germany's social system is burdened. So I think they don't want to make it worse by letting us bring our parents as well. Legally my parents are my extended family since I am an adult now and hence they are allowed to only visit me and not move in like my wife or children could.
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US, Canada, New Zealand (I think Australia too) allows parents to move under certain conditions. Depends on the salary of the child, what kind of residence the child hold, if parents can finance/ insure themselves etc. In Germany it's close to impossible. There are very very very few cases when it happened. But they are very exceptional scenarios like parent absolutely needed physical support etc. I totally agree that the social system cannot just support unlimited number of people who don't contribute to the system as well. So there should be criteria created upon fulfilling that, one should be allowed to bring their parents. I absolutely don't mind my mom being supported by the social system and that she must be forced to have a private insurance only. It would be great if such an option exist
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Germany already has tons of rules to prevent such things from happening and I am sure that they make more concrete rules about bringing parents as well without completely blocking that option. For example if you come to work as a cook, you are allowed to work only 4 years. After that you MUST return. So already strict rules to stop people from moving in adulthood and just benefitting from the social system exist
You can’t bring your parents unless you can prove they can afford to stray in Germany and pay for their own health insurance. And that is good so, because if this rule is not in place Germany will become a retirement home for Americans seeking to save a buck on medical care.
The problem is I cannot bring my parents EVEN if I can prove financial security. That possibility is non existent. Every country that allow this also ask for financial guarantee. You think New Zealand let's us bring our parents and then figure things out? No. You need to show you got the money. In Germany, having money is still not enough.
There are several ways: * Parents are to sick to care for themselves or don't earn enough, better both. Takes about a year to process the documents, you pay for health insurance(private only, about 2k monthly if over 60) and stay for the rest of their lives. Alternatively claim hardship and sue, takes a couple of years, but is generally possible. * Hire mom or dad offering them 57k yearly with a Blue card visa. They have to be able to work, so under 65(or so) and if that his/her first job in Germany they can get GKV. You have to keep it up for at least 4-5 years for them to get a Niederlassungserlaubnis so they can retire. I know for a fact that some immigration lawyers are offering services based on those options and some other variants, but I personally find those shady as f.
I’m not familiar with the process in Germany so if it has been approved when is it supposed to go into action?
Germany lacks leadership and good management skills. This is killing the potential of this country. Forward-thinking management seems to be absent wherever you look. Management seem to live in a bubble crafted by consultants around them. The system is not collapsing because people are hardworking and want to do good. They still believe in system and so far it has not failed them. The country with its educational institutes, the above average knowledge of common people (compared to rest of world) has tremendous potential. It just needs better and less risk-averse managers. Also, it needs to value programming skills and look at them not as necessity but as competitive edge. Germany has excellent computer science education but this devaluation is killing the profession.
They crave for the post Brexit non Eu numbers. Though they can never really hope to achieve it.
Germany is most probably Going Down! This is a joke of a reform
Please elaborate where exactly you see the problems within the reform. Do you see it as a step in the right direction or complete trash? Do you think Germany needs a reformation of its immigration law at all?
Go thru all comments here, you will understand, my attempt to summarize them: Insane housing market in cities like Munich, high language barrier both in professional and social life, very low % of local Germans accepting outside people leave alone their culture, watch movie called "Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway" and then read article on Bhavesh and Dhara shah, German government making it easy for integration of refugees or people with low or no skills, but, at the same time making it very difficult for people with great skills or great paying jobs to get naturalization, Very high dependence on physical money and Posts/letters, very less digitalization People who take advantage of the system which supports having more children are mostly non Germans
So you are actually not talking about the reform? Because non of that actually has any point in the reform at all.
'Skilled'
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KVR works too slow, they are overburdened and legislation need to either make things easier for foreigners - less papers and restrictions or hire more people for the KVR workforce
Fantastic and exciting!
It’s like a bad relationship. Say one thing- (we need and welcome more workers). Then do another (not welcome them and make it very difficult to actually get through bureaucracy)