In my case, I did consider becoming a teacher for IT stuff. Not really "IT", as pupils would first learn the basics of course, and the really interesting stuff might not even fit into the curriculum, but I could well imagine teaching what I know and maybe even establishing an extracurricular computer programming club or something. I would feel great passing on my knowledge. But what second subject to teach? ... The only other applicable thing I had in some amount during my studies is ... math. Ugh. You telling me I might have to take additional math lectures, with people who study to become math teachers?! No friggin way man. Also am not a native English speaker, and while I use English every day all day long, I don't think I have the detailed knowledge to teach it responsibly to students, unless they are total beginners, but I won't be teaching IT stuff in primary school, now will I.
If you stick to only one subject, perhaps they will tolerate you, but your salary will forever be a reduced one, even if you work the same hours, just because you only do one subject, and no matter how much of an expert you are.
When it comes to IT/software engineering I don't think there ever was a shortage. Just businesses, implementing big tech hiring processes for their tiny startups and then playing surprised pikachu, that they are "not finding talent".
Aren't those hurdles put in by teachers' unions to ensure they maintain a leverage over their jobs market? Same is for doctors, notaries, etc in a lot of countries.
The intention is to destroy public education in favor of private schools. Same as public health care has been systematically destroyed. It's all part of the neoliberal agenda.
Or take mental health care. We have enough therapists but we don't allow them to work with patients on public health care. We give that license only to a select few ensuring that people wait 6 months to a year if they want to get a therapy spot. Otherwise too many people would get therapy and that would cost money.
The goal is to make rich people richer and ensure they have enough desperate and cheap labor to exploit.
If they were granted proper work visas with portability then wages would go up. That's why Elon and co love H1Bs.
Surprised?
Stop watching Fox News.
Unions in Germany have less power than in France for instance. The rights to strike are more restrictive
The example at the beginning seems to be a now classic "I have a degree in an area where supply greatly exceeds demand". There is demand, there is supply, but there is a misalignment of qualifications and interests. If "well-qualified people" means fresh graduates in domains with low demand, then the qualification does not matter. In areas like constructions and handymen there is a serious shortage, if not a crisis, in the entire Western Europe. There are jobs, but not the ones most people want.
Too many people go to universities for a degree without checking if there is demand for these degree. Many that I know go to universities just to have a degree, they don't even care what is the domain. I have a childhood friend that is regularly unemployed, he is a historian, but he does not like working in archeological sites and there is not enough need for historians. At the same time we cannot find enough people for construction works, it is hard work and most people don't want it (diversity and equality does not work in such jobs, never did).
I agree for certain fields such as your example but until recently software engineers were in disproportional demand and that has changed pretty dramatically in less time than one would need to get a degree in the field.
Edit: And the example of people working in construction: I know a few. Their companies are booked out for the next 2 years. They, however have shitty pay and disproportionately many work-caused health problems. The owners of those companies are having a good time though.
A 24 year old friend works construction, building and restoring facades and such. Makes 70-80k Euros/year with his own schwarzgeld overtime outside of work. It's on par with a senior SW engineer with 10YOE here. Hard work indeed, but not poorly paid.
It's only poorly paid for unskilled positions in construction that are basically human carrying robots who haven't yet been automated.
There is no such thing as a shortage in labor markets. There is just people not willing to pay the correct price.
I once met this foreign guy in Germany who lived a life bouncing between seasonal part time work and unemployment and laughed at me when he heard I was working and how much I was making. He said, "why don't you go on welfare and have kids instead? The government pays your rent and bills and no more stress from work."
IMHO if you want to restore balance in the jobs market, then you need to cut welfare and employment taxes. As long as government burdens both the employee and employer with crazy taxes, and then redistributes those taxes poorly via corruption, populism and incompetence, then of course the market will always be distorted and fucked and there will always be a shortage and an oversupply, never a balance.
I really don't know much about it, I'd have assumed it follows a similar model to the Swedish one: you can be on benefits while searching for a job, there's even a government agency tasked with finding positions you might qualify, you are required to apply to X jobs a month, and if you get offered a job you need to take it or you will get benefits cut.
Of course, there are ways to prolong it but it's definitely not enough to create major distortions, you will eventually run the clock out on the unemployment payments. Also to have decent unemployment you need to have contributed to an unemployment fund, there's a national one available to all citizens which doesn't pay much, otherwise you need to have funded the one provided by your union.
Is Germany not enough diverse for you?
It's an anecdotal evidence, but while looking for a job I liked looking up employees on linkedin, then looking up the leadership on company's website. First one would always be much more diverse than the second one
> As of 2024, around 17.4 million people living in Germany, or 20.9% of the population, are first-generation immigrants, while the population with a migrant background in the wider sense stood at approximately 25.2 million, accounting for 30.2% of the total population of 83.5 million
Thats a very misleading statistic
Germans often switch to English when they hear an accent or hesitation
Nobody wants to talk about the cause because it's not politically correct: Government paying people enough to avoid doing work they don't like.
> If "well-qualified people" means fresh graduates in domains with low demand, then the qualification does not matter.
It matters because generations of young people have been gaslit by the government and by society that a degree from a prestigious government accredited university is a meal ticket.
>areas like constructions and handymen there is a serious shortage, if not a crisis, in the entire Western Europe.
You think Eastern Europe is spared? Who do you think works on construction sites in Western Europe, if not Eastern Europeans.
>it is hard work and most people don't want it
Cut all welfare and government handouts, cut taxes on labor and on employment.
Eastern Europe has the former, and as for the latter entrepreneurs in the industry just don't pay their taxes - ask me how I know.
There's still a shortage.
Strangely the wages don’t rise as one would expect.
And companies are picky, they want a perfect fit for their position including the work processes and programs.
Delusional.
Most historians who work as historians dont work in archeological sites, so I dont see how that part is relevant.
> In areas like constructions and handymen there is a serious shortage, if not a crisis, in the entire Western Europe. There are jobs, but not the ones most people want.
Are salaries going up?
> it is hard work and most people don't want it (diversity and equality does not work in such jobs, never did)
Like, you mean, immigrants wont be accepted if they apply? Cause wherever I was, these low level jobs were exactly the jobs where immigrants went first - they would hire literally almost anyone as they were not picky on language knowledge, cultural knowledge or even skills. All they asked for was time and ability to accept low salary with not too great conditions.
But, if they wont accept immigrants on principle, the inability to find workers is their own problem. Native Germans has obviously more options.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Trump administration actively shrinking the economic cake worldwide. Its active economic and cultural warfare against Europe. Nothing to sneeze at.
Germany and by extension the EU have shown remarkable resilience for now. The question what will happen next should an actual crisis follow. Don't be surprised should Europe further integrate its capital markets and defense to some extent.
The chemical sector hit though feels more self-inflicted by the government that closed down nuclear plants to rely on Russian gas. The annoying part (Nordstream unrelated) is that they didn't see it fit to put a brake on the nuclear decomissioning already in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine first.
People who shut down nuclear and coal plants in favour of unreliable wind and solar.
It's almost as if they want to close down their industry.
Getting rid of nuclear was a completely obvious blunder, I don’t think that says much about German people being weird or wanting to get rid of their industry. It was a short-termist political decision
People who want to cling on to fossil fuels from other countries.
It's almost as if they want to be dependent.
Yes I'm bitter how much influence the German car companies have over the union.
The two examples are not really representative, “press spokesman at a small industry association” and entry-level “apprenticeship in marketing communications and a bachelor’s degree in international management”. I don’t want to say that they are completely bs jobs but, well, these are quite niche. Both seem to be only ‘affordable’ for a strong economy, not during an economic instability.
What I’d like to get answers to is why if everyone says about shortages of nurses, doctors, teachers, plumbers and other handymen, highly qualified engineers capable of making some complex stuff like rockets; I don’t really see any policy makers pushing to make such jobs more appealing, I don’t see people around talking about moving to any of such areas even if they struggle or lose their office/corporate jobs, or talking about their kids learning to do one of them
SockThief•1h ago