The challenges ahead for the German economy | DW Business

Germany’s government is being urged to act now to avoid major economic problems in the near future. The German Council of Economic Experts, which advises Berlin, says the country will soon be confronted with an ageing workforce and an ageing industrial sector. It proposes radical policies such as raising the pension age, encouraging higher labor immigration and reforms to encourage the AI sector. Speaking to DW Business, Ulrike Malmendier from the panel of experts, says Germany has already been too slow to react to these challenges.

Chapters:
00:00 Topic introduction
01:05 Ulrike Malmendier, German Council of Economic Experts

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[MatteoSettenvini]

My wife had to go part time last year because of continued kindergarten and school strikes, closures, and unavailability. Usually it's women feeling the brunt of this lack of support from the state. Maybe ensuring also the education system works properly could help in retaining more women in full time jobs...

...and as a foreigner who recently became a German citizen, I am still appalled by the amount of bureaucracy I need to go through, especially through paper, pen, and snail-mail. I have friends that got so annoyed that they left Germany for other countries. Countries where they can speak English more easily, and where you can do everything online. Even Ukrainians, who have a country at war, are better off in this regard...

[CM]

Germany is an analog economy in a digital age.

[reframeservices]

My point of view as an IT professional is that I don’t need to move to Germany to write code. I have been working remotely for 7 years now mostly for US and French clients but I feel there is a lot of resistance from German companies for remote work. Mostly they require on site personel that I don’t find necessary.

[dnpl]

One of the main reasons why Germany economy is struggling not mentioned by invited politician is that Germany no longer have cheap fuels from Russia, so previous business strategy based on cheap energy failed really badly for Germans

[deesiInGermany]

Yesterday dr denied treatment as i cannot speak good German.

I am not a burden on economy. I am well qualified engineer contributing to the Germans economy.

[otoPARSTV]

Germany should stop blaming covid etc., the core of the short term future problem is expensive energy which caused cheap Russian-gas-depended Germany to lose the competition power. The core of long term future problem is US digested Europe's ability in many important areas such as technology, demography, stability and so on.

[daviddupond]

I have been working in Germany and been paying my taxes here for more than 7 years now. I have never met such frustrated and entitled people before. The only reason why I'm still here is that I'm making a nice high salary since my firm cannot apparently find German natives who are competent in my field. All in all most of my interaction with germans have been poor, even though I can speak the language.

I don't really care about that personally, as I have enough money not to have to interact with those people. But I do have many friends who already left because of that and the fact that Afd is on the rise.

Germans needs to be constantly reminded that their whole social system would collapse without foreign workers like us.

[talijahtalijah]

Germans' frugality and their desire not to take risk are the fundamental problem that is killing or cause start up flight.

[liang]

There's one thing: if the consumption and purchasing power is declining in Germany and Europe (the dispensable income crisis since inflation kicking in through western countries), what's the point of investing in larger production of goods?? Who are you going to sell to?
German cars are not selling well and are pushed into the upper niche markets: cars cost over EUR100.000 (incl. options and VAT);
At the for the 4th industrial revolution: AI, software technology, battery building, quantum physics, etc. There seems only two players: China and US. Europe has surrendered its entire tech market to US since 20 years ago, there's no way back (there will never be a European version of Facebook, google, Instagram, etc), everything digital in Europe is American!
If you have surrendered your digital industry to foreign counterpart, how on earth are you going to build your future industry?

[mehmoodkhankhattak]

Cold reception plus the difficult german language coupled with bureaucratic system makes it difficult for immigrants to stay and make it home.

[swapnilmalshe]

I have never seen any other German speaking out the reality so clearly!!! I hope everyone in Germany is listening.

[rendezone]

On the one hand there is a labor shortage but I keep seeing layoffs: tech companies, product oriented young companies, Volkswagen 3 times this year cutting jobs…
Which one is it then?

[Heegooat]

I studied this in 2002 and I thought surely it won't happen, I thought we will come up with a solution.

[ivanandonow]

Peter Zeihan used to talk about this years ago so hearing it now from DW it's not surprising to me at all

[Shining]

Germany is the sick man of Europe now..

[zzlbbdp]

Germany and Europe lost focus on growth and its people for 20 years, now the Europeans will pay the price

[cheg]

One of the ways to expedite this efforts of attracting the intellect to Germany is to be inviting to the international companies who are successful in their fields in other countries - and helping them with bureaucratic steps to do so. Especially when everything here in Germany is in German language only...

[izustun]

First they have to get rid of ancient German bureaucracy, then they need to reduce social security benefits. I know so many people who get social benefits and work illegally. An middle class German pays 1.5-2k per month tax, and after the tax what left for they is almost similar to the people who works illegally and get social benefits. This makes working totally unnecessary.

[markharcourt]

It's the sick man of Europe. Not the old man.
Germany has managed to take the mantle off The

[PhillCurtis]

No mention on the reliance on Russian gas?