FT: Germany calls for more immigrants to fix its shrinking economy
FT: Germany calls for more immigrants to fix its shrinking economy
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6837465
Even though right-wing politicians decry immigration (because it's a populist viewpoint), they secretly or openly want more. Countries without low immigration will lag economically compared to countries with high immigration such as the US.
Original link: https://www.ft.com/content/de913edd-71d1-4a36-b897-091125596952
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"we need more people that we dont respect to do the jobs that we dont want to. At the same time we have to make it really hard for immigrants to live here"
Also, we are going to complain that asylum seekers don't work while explicitly prohibiting work for asylum seekers.
It's one of the most blatant self-made problems around migration that populists very disingenuously employ to paint their favourite picture of the "welfare queen" which has been a bold, racist lie since it was first used.
But I'm also a bit sceptical of how you can do this in a country without mandatory collective agreements in all sectors. Germany at least has a minimum wage, but that just means wage dumping can only go as low as 12 Euro per hour. Back in Cyprus, where the same question is constantly in the news, the most notorious anti-worker industry, the tourism sector, is begging for asylum seekers to be allowed in the jobs that they have most trouble filling with citizens, EU-residents, and work-permit holders. But they want to do so outside a collective agreement (one used to exist, but for various reasons is now dead-letter) and essentially without even the protection of a minimum wage (which Cyprus didn't have until this year, and now it has an idiotic version of it which defines a monthly minimum wage without a limit to hours worked).
I think that the introduction of asylum seekers in the workforce should happen, but it should happen in tandem with a massive pro-union legislation change that will make collective agreements mandatory across the board (similar to the Swedish and Finnish models, as far as I understand those). That might require re-aligning the way unionism is understood in Germany from per-workplace to be per-industry.
Can't speak for Finland, although I think it's the same, but collective agreements are certainly not mandatory in Sweden. Most companies over a certain size have them, but they don't have to. Many, if not most, small businesses don't.
I personally wouldn't work for a company that didn't have one.
unionism
Not sure this is quite the right term here. At least in the UK this is about being for the Union of the countries making up the UK, not about worker's unions and in Northern Ireland it is usually synonymous with one side of the conflict.
Given that the article is not about the UK, I don't see a good reason to reach for a UK-specific definition.
Bollocks. Even in the UK unionism has dual meanings, one about organised labour and one about the country. And the country meaning of unionist only gets mindshare in NI & Scotland. If you mention anything about unions/unionism in England people will assume organised labour.
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The US doesn't have a problem with finding good Immigrants. Even though the politics are horrible and misogynistic and you have to leave everything behind, smart people are moving to the US in droves. The greencard is still something desirable.
Meanwhile in Germany you earn noticably less, spend noticably more the people are noticably less nice and you have to do as much work for your ID here as you do in the US.
Don't know about Germany, but here in France there are lots of IT workers from the Maghreb.
And you need lots of IT? Youre not missing anything else?
Yeah we need (needed?) IT workers because until a few years ago, salaries for tech positions were really low in France compared to the rest of Europe and the US, so lots of French developers and techs emigrated to these countries.
Not sure about other industries, I work in IT so that's what I know from personal experience.
I worked with someone who moved to Germany/Austria/Switzerland (I can't remember) from France to do IT work and pay a bit less taxes from this IT salary.
I do believe French when they say they need IT workers.