2y ago

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

62 comments

"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.
- 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?
As someone who is a highly skilled immigrant, I have been looking for a job for 3 months, my friends (all of them) have been looking for jobs for the last 6 months. Germany needs to fix this issue first before asking for more immigrants. More people won't fix anything if finding a job is so difficult.
- aren't you supposed to take all of our jobs?! /s
  i hope you succeed soon. a friend of mine is also looking for a new job for nearly a year now 😐
- highly skilled immigrant
  That means you want to be paid well, right? We don't do that here.
  
  Right now i just want a livable job, like i got 1k eur as a student for working 20h/week so right now anything above or equal should do. My only requirement is that it is related to software cuz thats my field.
  Man it is so crazy, i have masters from a uni which is 5th for computer science in germany. My gpa is 1.7 and i have 1.5 years of full time software dev experience and 3 years of part time (20h/week) software/ML engineering experience. And i have sent 70-80 applications and yet no interview. Like people if my creds are not enough to get me even 1 interview where i can show that i have skills that i claim to have then what will??
"Immigrants bad!"
economy needs more workers
"Immigrants good!"
jk, this won't change opinions a bit.
- I mean it's not like the Right Wing politicians are the ones touting the work load immigration assists in carrying
I think a better solution would be to fund pensions out of a sovereign wealth fund that's not necessarily tied to youth productivity.
Stops youngins from feeling like they're living in a geroncleptocracy, while also not tossing grandma out to live in the underpass
- What if we created one pension fund each year? Every person born that year contributes into that fund during their working years and withdraw from it in retirement. It seems like a solution that is fair to everybody, avoiding inter-generational wealth transfers.
  
  Well then it's basically losing money against inflation
ThEy'Re sTEaLinG ouR JoBs!!!
"Exploit the immigrants to fix their economy, just like Canada"
FTFY
If Germany had an influx of highly qualified workers and professionals I guarantee you there wouldn’t be as much discussion. Immigration comes in different types.
- Germany needs workers on all levels of qualification.
  
  Might be but letting people incompatible with our shared values in has always been a bad idea, especially when you let them stay indefinitely.
  
  Germany needs workers, not people who are illiterate and unlikely to ever work. Germany has accepted a LOT of people of the latter, and it is causing a lot of social unrest. If the current ruling parties don’t get a handle on things soon, the far right AfD will take power. There are only a few years left to turn this around.
- I mean, Germany is getting those too, but there are only going to be so many of those on the market. You aren't gonna go to, I dunno, Sudan and find a town fully populated by people with doctorates hell-bent on leaving.
More people won't fix shit.
- Young people will fix shit. Western European societies have significantly ageing populations. That means they need to choose between three options to maintain their pension systems:
  Cut benefits for pensioners and/or increase the retirement age.
  Increase taxes for the young to pay for pensions for the old.
  Keep tax and benefit levels the same, but allow foreigners to move to Western Europe where they can work and pay taxes.
  1 and 2 both have huge intergenerational consequences - and bluntly, having seen how the baby boom generation have pulled the ladder up behind them, I have no great urge to pay taxes through the teeth for the rest of my working life to fund their cushy retirements. 3 hurts nobody and benefits everybody - it's a no-brainer.
  
  The main problem in Germany is, is that there are different pension systems for privileged classes (Politicians, Civil Servants, Doctors, Lawyers, Bankers) and the REST. The privileged classes are fighting tooth and nail to prevent THEIR pension services included in a singular pension system. Another problem is that only the workers are paying into the system - if you earn income from any other sources like being a landlord or owning vast wealth and accrue interest - that income does not count for the pension fees.
  This is just a very short abstract and it doesn’t really capture the complexity.
  As you have written that they could lower the pension… the pension by 2035 will be 43% of your net income before taxes. The average German pension is about €1500 per month (those privileged classes I talked about before, have multiples of the average German pension)
  
  And what happens when those foreign workers in Solution #3 age, retire and need pension payouts...? Just keep hiring more and more foreign workers? Besides, "benefits everybody" is only from an national economic perspective. From the cultural, social and personal economic perspective, having a huge influx of foreigners in your country is terrible.
  I don't think foreign labor is completely off the mark but there has to be guards against them costing more money than they contribute to the system, which means strict culture, skill and income requirements for permanent migration.
  
  What about a fourth option of reducing the amount of old people?
  Besides that the only feasible policy would be temporarily cutting retirement benefits. If it's permanent it would never be accepted by anyone and neither be fair.
  More immigration simply delays the issue a few decades into the future.

62 comments