German here. There is no labor shortage, just a shortage of decent job offerings because lo behold employers are stingy.
I mean yes, that too, but there actually is a labor shortage as well. We have 2.7M unemployed people and 700k open positions (source).
However, we need to account for
a) unemployed people that are not able to work due to illness etc b) those 700k open positions are only the ones that are reported to our labor agency (Arbeitsagentur).
If you account for that, we probably have closer to 2M open positions.
Imho 2M open positions makes more sense as there about 100k open positions in child care (Kita) alone.
But there wouldn’t be a shortage if those jobs would pay decent wages and offer tolerable working conditions, or pay tolerable wages with decent working conditions.
Also there is many people who came as refugees and want to work, but they are prohibited form doing so.
That is at least in the next few years. With all the boomers retiring the economy is going to get fucked either way.
However, we need to account for
a) unemployed people that are not able to work
Not sure how it works there, but I believe in the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t count people unable to work in their “unemployed persons” numbers.
Like…a 3 month old infant isn’t considered “unemployed” for statistical purposes, for example.
As an American, how do I sign up to work in Germany? Practically speaking, not just the “official” way.
Well really the only step is to get hired in the first place, then you can request residence based on that.
But it’s next to impossible to get hired as someone outside of the EU/Single Market unless you have many years (3-5 probably) of experience in a highly in-demand field/specialization, usually STEM stuff especially anything in tech or engineering, but also medical jobs since most EU countries put an artificial restriction on the amount of doctors that can be produced – in fact, because of this, western European countries tend to import loads of doctors from eastern European countries and Cuba which often don’t have these restrictions and can produce many excess doctors. Keep in mind though medical professionals that, due to those artificial caps on doctors (which were created as a way to restrict supply and maintain the high status/prestige and pay of being a doctor) you usually have extremely long hours and are overworked to hell, with relatively poor working conditions, but I imagine it’s still way better than in the US (which also has those artificial caps) for most who aren’t top surgeons since at least the EU has worker protection laws lol.
I imagine trades are also highly valued by the government seeing as Europe has a critical shortage of people working in trades, due to the governments neglecting them, refusing to do much to value them, leading them to have worse pay and conditions than white-collar jobs. Why go through all the bullshit that is working a trade in the EU and just get underpaid and mistreated, when you can instead get 2x the pay and benefits of working an office job? So that’s also probably doable.
I do fuck all most days. Maybe 2 hrs a day. It wasn’t always like this, I used to work a solid 40hr week, but as I’ve settled into my role, I’ve made vast efficiency improvements. Im not doing less work, Im just very fast at doing it.
There are moments, of course, when some part of a project derails, and then I spend 6 hours straight investigating some weird minor anomaly, but those are getting rarer as I phase out old projects that I inherited.
Are you in a tech related field? I feel like if I tried that at my butcher job they would assign me even more work.
I don‘t see how smaller shifts at the same pay wouldn‘t work in virtually every industry. What‘s so different about a butcher, carpenter or taxi driver compared to a store clerk who works half time already? In terms of organizing I mean. There isn‘t a professional that isn‘t affected by ever developing automation processes. At least indirectly, but only the rich get to reap it‘s benefits for as long as I live. It‘s time to change that and a universal 30 hour work week is a good start.
If you let your office worker who only works effectively fo 30 hours go after these, instead of having a shitshat coffee for 2 hours every day at the office, you still get the same result.
If you let your butcher go after 30 hours you need to hire another one, because you need a butcher there during opening hours.
Indeed.
I’d even say it was once the natural way. As you got better/faster at a task, you absolutely got more free time and less work fixing mistakes, too.
If members of a hunter/gatherer community got better/faster, they had more time to do other things. That would still be true if money wasn’t the direct goal of all: if a tailor/carpenter/dentist/etc. does a better, more permanent job, they have less work fixing and repairing and get a better reputation.
Only when you manufacture for sheer output and/or your employer’s sole interest is to squeeze maximum value out of you is our relationship to work perverted into the now common “the faster you work, the faster you receive more work.”
A 4 day work week would be real nice, because for many, Saturday is the recovery/errands day, and Sunday is the stressing about impending Monday day. The article points out about places needing to be open but wouldn’t spreading out hours over 2x 4 day full time positions make more logistical sense than 1x 5day and various part timers on the weekends and here and there, with the overlap on whatever is the typically busiest day?
Tbh as nice as it sounds that everyone has Sunday off it is one of the few things that need to but will never change(among others are: being able to sell alcohol everywhere and no speed limit on the autobahn and also ‘Digitalisierung’). I’m not saying that people are not entitled to have at least on day of rest every week. But the original ‘Christian’ reason to be able to attend church is way past its time. no one goes to church anyway and people just accept that they can’t buy groceries because ‘oh well it’s sundayshrugs’ People should be able to pick their free day and also be able to buy fricking groceries or go to a hardware store… think about it for a second: it creates job opportunities and collect sales tax…
That would make me rethink and I probably would move back to Germany to enjoy this.
The country is about to turn into a fascist regime in the next few years. While the fascists from the AfD now openly talk about their plans of mass deportation, the “conservatives” talk about destroying social welfare and fighting migration. They claim this way they would take votes away from the fascists, but it only helps them and they know it. The supposedely progressive parties are also turning into right wing populists, be it on migration, social welfare and enforcing austerity measures on the country instead of doing direly needed investments.
Meanwhile the next years will be marked by millions of boomers retiring, causing massive disruptions in the economy, and the disparity between payers and takers of the pension funds will be “adressed” by ramping up the amount taken from the workers or by using most of the tax money on it. Lowering the pensions will not be done, because the old people are the dominant demographic and political force. They will ride this country into ruin, rather than taking less for themselves.
Germany is going to turn into a dumbster fire and the further people stay away from it, the better for them.
You sound like a doomer, let my try myself, I have several options where I could live in:
- What you wrote there fitts very well on Sweden, also but they also already have gang violence and the highest number of shootings in the EU
- In Poland they’re even worse, saying no to abortion rights, getting really close to how russia treats LGBTQ, they want the same for themselves.
- Korea is the most depressed country in the world, worst birth rate in the world 0.6 children per woman, and they can’t fix those problems with imigration either
- China has the same problem as Korea but is an autocratic dectatorship on top of that, racist through and through
Seems the world is already a dumpsterfire.
Neither Sweden nor Poland have an unresolved genocidal past that could reemerge into mainstream society. German culture is a particular combination of German Angst, lack of empathy, wish for a strong leader and reluctance to take responsibility for their own actions.
I managed to get this instead of a pay raise. One of the very best decisions I ever made. Sure more money is always nice but it wouldn’t be the difference between buying a house and not anyway. Might as well reclaim life time and enjoy what I got, while I got it.
