Why Germany is falling behind in digitalization | DW News

Germany is Europe's economic powerhouse - known for its engineering and auto industry. But in digitalization, Germany lags behind comparable EU economies. The European Commission ranks Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands top 3 for digital competence. Germany is far behind in 13th place - only slightly above the EU average. Europe's largest economy scores badly due in large part to its public agencies, which rely heavily on paper work. A big chunk of the country's bureaucracy isn't digitalized. And Germany also lacks skilled tech workers.
An estimated 140,000 IT job vacancies still need to be filled. That's according to German IT association Bitkom. Those are among issues that will come up today when the German government is holding another digitalization summit.

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[espath]

"yeah Germany is lagging behind in digitalisation"
*switching paper sounds* 😂😂😂

[dekev]

As for the IT job vacancy issues, you get what you pay for. You can't be offering a software Engineer €60k where he can get twice that amount working remotely for an American company. The painful thing is that Germany has some of the best STEM institutions in the world, they train extremely brilliant Engineering talent for free ( I happen to be one of them). These talented graduates, after getting free world class education, take their skills to more competitive markets in North America, who would've otherwise charged them a premium for their education.

Also, many of the Engineering students at German institutions are foreigners. So much so that most Engineering masters programs ( especially in IT rated fields like Computer Sience and Electrical Engineering) are now taught entirely in English. The native German youth would rather study Economics or business or learn a trade ( ausbildung) because at the end of the day, the salary difference between an Engineer and an accountant isn't that much. Hence, It makes no sense to sacrifice your youth studying for a very difficult degree ( and trust me, German Engineering is really difficult) only to come out just to earn a few hundred euros a month more than a student that enjoyed his youth while studying a less demanding course.

[naynay]

Don't worry. Here in UK we're falling behind in everything

[ren]

I have a German girlfriend and I'm stunned at German bureaucracy. Every year she needs to fill out many papers and get so many stamps for such basic things. She's not even allowed to scan certain papers and send by email, she needs to make appointments with her city hall to personally deliver it in person. Then the wifi in Germany is horrible. Everytime we do long distance calls, as soon as she goes upstairs to her room from the living room, she loses connection on the call.

[SerhiyP]

"lagging behind" is an understatement, when you receive a PAPER letter when you have to change your password to your ONLINE account...
not to mention the internet turtle speed, inability to pay with a card, and many many more things.

[neo]

im from eastern european country and it was absolutely staggering for me to find out that Germanys internet is a complete rubbish really really subpar speeds and very expensive .... its a shame

[MrVikas]

I am IT professional in germany. I have worked in US and India.

Problem with Germany's digitalization:
1. Lot of old people, who dont want to change.
2. German on top culture, does not allow good perfoming IT guy from outside to grow up the ladder.
3. Too much of process orientation. Work is too slow.
4. Holidays: even big and important bosses go on for month long holiday. Most of the the time someone important is missing, so decision making is slow.

[SamiKotiranta]

Here in Finland if you interact with county or government agencies you do it in digital format, you can still ask for rulings/decisions to be sent to you in paper. I haven't seen anything in paper at least in 10 years...

[Rokbin]

I was surprised to know that transferring money in germany would take around 2-3 days when the developing countries like India, Nepal has take a great leap in digital payment system making it possible to make pmnt or transfer fund in splits of second.Different e-wallets, apps, has changed whole scenario in this countries.slowly cashless economy is now seem so possible within these countries and here in germany its just opposite

[kunalghosh]

Germany can learn a lot from India's e-governance plans and digitization initiatives taken by the Government.

[AmitFiesta]

This is what even i felt. Digital transformation is lagging here compared to India where you pay directly from phone on buying groceries or hotel bills but you can't do the same in Germany. You have to say either by cash or may be by card (if you have one) but i am not sure what is the exact reason - may be privacy or data protection. Or may be people are not willing to move towards digitization. But once they understand the use cases, they will move pretty fast. Atleast this is what I think.

[tubekentube]

Maybe Europe spend less time on thinking how to punish US tech giants, but developing her own ones.

[montecristo]

I wonder why is that? Maybe it's because near border is swiss who pays IT guys 2 times more and taxes 2 times less.

[emanuelfeldman]

Why? Old, crusty and conservative politicians of the last 2 decades, where they first saw no use in this new technology and then failed to understand the disadvantage of this ignorance thus not prioritizing the endeavor to build this infrastructure 🤷🏻‍♂️

[a.z]

I moved here 3.5 years ago and I have aged 10 years just because of all these paperworks. It is not just the government. I emailed an invoice to my employer here and they asked for a hard copy before they reimburse it. so i printed the very same document and handed it to them to get my money back. I didn't know if i should cry or laugh

[dm]

If the moribund thinking of German football is a reflection of overall society it’s easy to see why Germany is falling behind.

[TobiasBalk]

I don't like how DW always rushes their interviewees to be more brief, it's very noticeable

[julioprado]

Germany had the best universities in the world at the beginning of the XX century, most of its industry comes from inventions of that period. Today its education system is mediocre, its innovation is poor and its bureaucracy is enormous. On top of that it is not an open and welcoming country for foreign talent, the language is a big barrier and Germany has failed in opening to English as a common language like the Netherlands or the Scandinavians.

[Nehas]

One of reason Indian after completing degree Don't want live Germany is backwardness in living 1990 in Digital world.

[shaddyhacker]

IT salaries are visibly low in Germany and I don't know why. I'd like to work in Germany when I graduate but adding the high cost of living it doesn't make sense. UK, Ireland, CH and Scandinavian countries offer better opportunities.