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germany land of emigration
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| CranberryJuice |
Germany: land of emigration
Auf wiedersehen, Fatherland
Oct 26th 2006 | BREMERHAVEN
From The Economist print edition
For decades, foreigners found work in Germany. Now Germans are going abroad in search of jobs
FROM the windswept quays of Bremerhaven, a German port city on the North Sea, more than 7m sailed away in search of a better life, among them Germans, Russians and Scandinavians. For those wanting to relive the great 19th-century journeys to America, the destination for many of those emigrants, the city now offers an “experience museum” to give visitors a real taste of leaving home.
At the German Emigration Centre they can walk though replicas of the wharves where loved ones said their final farewells, ships' cabins and the arrival room at New York's Ellis Island. For many Germans back then, departure was a permanent breach with the homeland, as emigrants had to give up their German citizenship.
Until recently, all this would have been a journey into a bygone age. Germany, after all, has long been a powerful magnet for immigrants, attracting millions of foreign “guest-workers”, many from Turkey. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 set in motion a further movement of people: Germans moving from the degraded east to the affluent west, ethnic Germans “returning” to the homeland, Jews leaving the oppression of Soviet times and other East Europeans seeking work in the most accessible part of the West.
Now the trend is reversing. The tally of foreigners and ethnic Germans moving to Germany has declined sharply, while the number of Germans leaving the country is accelerating. In 2004 more than 150,000 Germans reported to their town halls that they were going abroad—the highest number since 1884. The real figure is almost certainly much higher. Germany, once the economic engine of Europe, is on the point of becoming a country of net emigration. The museum in Bremerhaven may soon need a new wing with an aeroplane cabin or high-speed railway carriage, today's mode of departure.
This turn of events is not without irony. Until recently, politicians bickered about too many immigrants. Now it is emigrants they worry about. “A terrible development,” said Roland Koch, the premier of the state of Hesse, who once won an election by opposing a proposal to allow dual citizenship for Turks living in Germany. Business leaders are even more anxious. “More and more young people are turning their backs on Germany,” fretted Ludwig Georg Braun, president of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
On the surface this may look like a case of overdone German angst. In the first six months of this year 69,000 Germans left the country, but 47,000 came back. The net outflow was 22,000 people, almost insignificant in a country of 82m people. However, according to Simone Eick, director of the Bremerhaven museum, emigration is likely to become a long-term trend.
The modest figures mask a more serious problem: brain-drain. Hard numbers are difficult to find, but anecdotal evidence suggests that many more academics are leaving Germany than are arriving, in contrast with countries such as the United States and Sweden that have a net “brain-gain”. According to a German medical organisation, about 12,000 German doctors now work abroad, many of them in Britain and Switzerland, which last year replaced the United States as the workplace of choice. Austria now ranks as the third-favourite destination.
In part, this is due to globalisation. German university students usually spend at least one term abroad and often speak a second language fluently. For the highly skilled, it does not matter much whether they work in Berlin, Munich, London or New York. Their stories of success encourage others to follow suit, explains Ms Eick.
There is also something deeper at work. With unemployment stuck above 10% and growth lagging behind the rest of the European Union, many young Germans feel that their country offers them too few opportunities. In June an article on emigration in Manager Magazin, a business monthly, provoked a flood of comments from Germans all over the world, turning its website into a forum on emigration. A typical posting complains about “ossification, a culture of jealousy and the arrogance of the powerful”.
The mood may improve if Germany's economic recovery continues. There is no question, though, that the country must learn to attract and retain the highly skilled (and highly mobile), whether German or foreign. Yet this week the federal government turned down proposals to make it easier for talented foreigners to work in Germany. Only 138 people defined as “highly qualified”—such as engineers and entrepreneurs—settled in Germany in the first quarter of this year, out of a total inflow of 123,000 foreigners. For their part, local authorities and universities seek to attract bright foreigners, for instance by creating “welcome centres” to help them get residence permits, find homes and enrol in language classes.
One more development explains why it is a good idea for Germany to try to stem the flow of emigrants: its neighbours are getting nervous. In Switzerland, doctors are already complaining that Germans are taking the best jobs. Austria has introduced a quota for foreign students, because Germans are starting to crowd out natives at medical schools (where they often perform better than Austrians in entrance exams). If they are not careful, Germans may become the unloved “guest-workers” of tomorrow.
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interesting article which doesnt surprise me one of my friend from when i used to be in HS is german studying and told me about his plans to emigrate ....but more than just germany i would say it's something which concern western europen union ....i have a dutch friend who was my pen pal when i was a teen and who wanna emigrate too and i want as well
hard to say but i dont think europe makes us dream anymore.....At least when it comes to job opportunities....i have some foreigners at school studying in france but it's clear as soon as they gonna be done they certainly dont plan to stay here because it's too hard to get a job and a career....
the bf of a friend just became an engineer and his promo almost everyone was leaving to be hired abroad US japan.....australia........so if nothing is made to keep young people.....this phenomen will just grown even more |
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| star-traveller |
Good! More people get out more people could come in.
If you cannot get a job after you have graduated a university, than you were wasting your time while studying. |
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| CranberryJuice |
| quote: | Originally posted by star-traveller
Good! More people get out more people could come in.
If you cannot get a job after you have graduated a university, than you were wasting your time while studying. |
totally simplistic:rolleyes:
it's a not about not having a job but about having a job which doesnt offer u what u should usually expect .....Like u'll have a under qualified job when u have an university degree , or be under paid.....
in others words the offers u can get are not good
next time take the time to read the article:rolleyes: |
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| metalgearsolid |
| quote: | Originally posted by CranberryJuice
totally simplistic:rolleyes:
it's a not about not having a job but about having a job which doesnt offer u what u should usually expect .....Like u'll have a under qualified job when u have an university degree , or be under paid.....
in others words the offers u can get are not good
next time take the time to read the article:rolleyes: |
Everybody would complain about the salary they get after college. They expect it to be a lot just because of their major. But what is more important other than a degree. Is job experience. You need to have worked in that field for a couple of years. Before expecting to get a good salary. |
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| star-traveller |
| quote: | Originally posted by CranberryJuice
totally simplistic:rolleyes:
it's a not about not having a job but about having a job which doesnt offer u what u should usually expect .....Like u'll have a under qualified job when u have an university degree , or be under paid.....
in others words the offers u can get are not good
next time take the time to read the article:rolleyes: |
Man, please don't bother me with these whining articles about hopeless european youth.
I've graduated the average university in Russia (outside Moscow). On the last year of studying I found a job and was getting work experience. After I've got a diploma, I found a job abroad going through all the humiliating procedures of getting a Work Permission you haven't even heard about it. I'm not a genius, I don't have rich parents, I'm just an average person.
You know after that, reading how most of the central europeans are crying that they cannot find a job after the degree IS MAKING ME LAUGHING. They have so many choises of where and how to build there career and they still act childish.
ps.
Especially in Germany. I was really amazed by the news that VW workers didn't like the idea of working the normal workweek of 35hrs instead of 28hrs(?) for the same payment. I couldn't understand after, how is holding up the German economy anyway ? |
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| sasslife |
^^^^
Most investment and bank companies are based here in london for that reason
French and German employees are as lasy as hell. |
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| Kapedan |
| quote: | Originally posted by sasslife
^^^^
Most investment and bank companies are based here in london for that reason
French and German employees are as lasy as hell. |
Well when in France you work what? 30 hours a week? The goverment being socialist, of course people will get lazy. |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by CranberryJuice
interesting article which doesnt surprise me one of my friend from when i used to be in HS is german studying and told me about his plans to emigrate ....but more than just germany i would say it's something which concern western europen union ....i have a dutch friend who was my pen pal when i was a teen and who wanna emigrate too and i want as well
hard to say but i dont think europe makes us dream anymore.....At least when it comes to job opportunities....i have some foreigners at school studying in france but it's clear as soon as they gonna be done they certainly dont plan to stay here because it's too hard to get a job and a career....
the bf of a friend just became an engineer and his promo almost everyone was leaving to be hired abroad US japan.....australia........so if nothing is made to keep young people.....this phenomen will just grown even more |
interesting article cranberry, thanks for posting it. when i visited berlin i really liked it, i could see myself living there one day |
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| Lilith |
I think its a case of corporations and governments finally cluing onto the fact that young people today are willing too go where the work is, not like their forebears who wouldnt go outside the country. As young people today we're a great deal more multicultural and exposed too other societies too the point where a lot of us just arent scared of picking up our bags and going too get a job where things might be different to what we grew up in.
My grandmother for example rarely left the town she grew up in and certainly never left England, being lumped with a 5yr old 'mixed breed' little animal like me to find schooling for (I wasnt 'white enough' for the 'good' schools and you dont want too know how awful a 'bad' school was in the mid 80's...) was about the biggest cultural hurdle she'd had too deal with in her entire life.
My Auntie in Australia who I spent my teenage years with and higher education was relatively well travelled if you count Bali for holidays but she never travelled all that much for work more than an hour or 2 a day.
My mother, left England and married my stepfather in South Africa and he travelled quite a lot to get work around the world as an engineer with her and my older half sister tended too stay back in SA, still in SA and doesnt like travelling at all.
Me, I've worked in Paris, London and NY and Perth, Melbourne and Sydney when I needed a job and still non-plussed about having too do it again if I had too.
It's not an exception or a generalisation that all young people are like that, but a larger amount of them are not at all scared of having too go somewhere too get a job when theres nothing available where they live. |
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| Marc Summers |
| quote: | Originally posted by star-traveller
Good! More people get out more people could come in.
If you cannot get a job after you have graduated a university, than you were wasting your time while studying. |
If you haven't gotten an internship during college, it will be 1000x harder to find a job. Nobody looks for fresh diplomas, they look for people with experience. The n00bies are supposed to be the interns, not the people getting paid! :) |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Marc Summers
If you haven't gotten an internship during college, it will be 1000x harder to find a job. Nobody looks for fresh diplomas, they look for people with experience. The n00bies are supposed to be the interns, not the people getting paid! :) |
Unfortunately that's not the attitude this new generation comes in with a lot of the time.
They expect to come in, make waves and get paid. |
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