New immigration law in Germany! Here's what it means for you!

In this video, Jörg and Tammo talk about the new immigration law and what is going to change for you in the process of moving to Germany.

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We're a team of German ex-tech recruiters helping Tech & IT professionals from around the world find their jobs in Germany. During our time as recruiters we saw how many gifted and smart candidates never get shortlisted or make it to the final round. That's why we turned our HR experience into a job coaching program - a program that works.

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[Ausflug]

Dear Friends, Discuss about staying in Germany. German Government calling immigrant but they don't have adequate housing. For that reason staying in Germany is very very costly. You have to pay 1/3 or more of your salary as a rent. As a foreigner it is also difficult to get appartment.
Government should think about it first. One of my known person telling that since 8 months he is not gettting any apartment. Govt taxation and medical and social security they will charge you 42% of your salary. They don't discuss about that. Do not convert Euro to Indian currency. You will be able to save very little money. Another thing is that you should learn German language at least B1 level. No body use to prefer other than German language. You will think twice before you goto Germany.

[johaquila]

Don't take the skilled worker shortage too seriously. The German job market is strange. In some fields, we have a strong tradition of apprenticeship or similar mechanisms, where young people are employed right after school and for several years get solid training for a field of work. Part of this is training on the job, part is special schools for this type of work, and part is a continuation of regular school. The apprentices or other trainees get a very small salary during this time and often still live with their parents. At the end of the program, you have people who are (normally) properly trained for their work and can prove it. Some employers train only as many people as they expect to employ, selecting their trainees carefully and expecting them to stay when their training is over. Some employers save money unfairly by not participating in this scheme at all, only hiring people trained by others. Some employers concentrate on these programs and train more people than they need.

In IT and other non-traditional fields, there are no such training programs. Most employers in these fields would like to act like the worst kind of employers in the traditional fields and hire only people who have been fully trained by others. Worse, they don't expect just general work experience, but work experience specifically for the technologies they are using. In part this has to do with German labor laws. If someone is unsuitable for a type of work, you are supposed to fire them during the probation period, and it becomes almost impossible to do afterwards. There are problems with this. The probation period is often not enough time for someone to become fully productive, and the employer must act on unclear information that is often filtered through colleagues who have their own agenda or just general sympathy for the new colleague.

As a result we get job adverts searching for a software developer with a computer science degree who has 10 years of experience working with a technology available since last year and is willing to work for the pay of a junior developer. If nobody applying to this advert satisfies the criteria (as is inevitable), this is another data point proving there aren't enough skilled workers. For job seekers it means that you can and must basically ignore the requirements and deduce from the salary offered whether you are qualified. And if your qualifications are worth a higher salary, it's still worth applying and asking for it once they have seen you. All of this is of course far from the open communication and blunt honesty that Germans are otherwise known for. A related matter is that at the end of an employment, a German employer _must_ write you a _sympathetic_ general reference letter if you request it. Therefore employers tend not to take references too seriously, and tend to interpret them as negatively as they can. For example, in Germany, 'positive contributions to the work climate' is well-established code for 'alcoholic', and references to working hard can be understood as code for incompetence.

If you are a skilled worker, there are good reasons to choose Germany, but do not expect it to be easy. Sometimes no German is required at all because everyone in technical fields is fluent in English anyway, people in the company are flexible, and most of the time they are speaking English already because some of your future colleagues are recent immigrants from all over the world. And sometimes you must be fully fluid in German. The latter is a bad sign. It can mean that there is an inflexible hiring department, it can mean that the company is overly bureaucratic and people spend most of their time in senseless meetings, or it can mean that communicating with German customers is necessarily an important part of your job.

German society is generally open and tolerant, although exceptions obviously do exist. There is racism and xenophobia here, but it's not as bad as in France or the US. German is relatively easy to learn if you are already fluent in English. A large part of the vocabulary is either directly related to a corresponding English word or is logically assembled from simpler words. (Examples: ein Ochse, zwei Ochsen = one ox, two oxen; Handschuh = 'hand shoe' = glove.) The biggest problems is gender and cases, two grammatical complications that don't exist in English. But it doesn't matter if you get them wrong all the time. People will understand you anyway. You can read and understand German without remembering the details, and by reading a lot of German you will naturally and without conscious effort learn to get them right.

Germany provides great social security. If you are willing to adapt to, or at least live with, the quirks of German society, it may be worth looking for the ideal job in Germany. It seems that often the best way to do this is via a company that has branches both in your current country and in Germany. Do not expect to buy a house in Germany; most people just rent an apartment. (Home ownership is very low, and we don't consider this a problem.) When moving to a big city, you will probably not need a car and will be able to save a lot of money by not having one, but you may find it _extremely_ hard to find an affordable place to rent. (We consider housing shortage in big cities a big problem.)

PS: Whereas the skilled worker shortage is a bit of a joke, Germany has a very real demographic problem that means we _do_ need immigration. Even if large parts of the population don't understand it and politicians tend to deny it. We have a high life expectancy and have had very low fertility rates for a long time. (About 1.5 children per woman.) In other words, our society is shrinking at the same time that it is growing older. The typical German is 48 years old. (That's the median: Half of Germans are older, half are younger. The average age is 45 years.) Every year, the number of Germans who reach retirement age is 50% more than the number of Germans who start their first job. Obviously we can't have _everyone_ working to take care of the old, and almost nobody paying taxes any more. Immigrants are younger on average, and they have more children on average. (Germany is a great country for having and raising children, up to free university!)

[WaveWalker]

We do not have any personell shortage in Germany. We do have a shortage of employers who are willing to pay fair for your job

[kaworunagisa]

Yeah... There's supposedly skilled workers' shortage in IT, yet all of the companies who hire online want a C1 in German and for the potential employee to already have a work permit in Germany. I've been actively searching for a job in Germany since early April, and the few companies that gave me a human response (as opposed to an automated boot of "we have carefully reviewed your application and decided not to consider you for this position") have outright told me that my B1 wasn't good enough, they wanted C1, and unless I already had a job permit in Germany, very few companies would even consider me, and why wouldn't I come to Germany on a Job Seeker's visa if I wanted a chance to find a job. As if my crappy underdeveloped country savings would ever be enough to live in Germany without a job for any length of time.
With that out of the way, the lifting of the minimum salary threshold is a low blow, because now companies would be able to hire immigrants for below industry standard salaries and no one can hold them accountable.

[gera]

As a doctor who didnt study in the EU, I have to either pay around 10.000€ to get my study documents translated and validated here(wich almost never gets approved anyways) or pay around 1000€ and restudy medicin while Im already working 24/7 as a resident to pass a validation exam.
Germany complains about lack of doctors yet they do it extremely expensive and hard for inmigrants. And it doesn't get easier for locals either.
The level of non-sense burocracy is alarmating. Changes happen sooo slow here and people refuse to open their minds and change how things work.

The language barrier, High Taxes, and low salaries. is a big issues in Germany

[Whatsupwiththisname]

From my experience (automotive AI engineer) the is not gap of IT people, but German speaking IT people. Even with my well demanded skills some recruiters first approached me but then rejected after learning I don’t speak German.

[desmbergg]

There are many reasons that the foreign workers either do not want to come to Germany or do not want to stay here longer. 1) You can not bring your parents. 2) Almost impossible to find a specialist doctor when you need it with govt. health insurance. 3) The livable and normal apartments are very expensive and difficult to get. 4) Even if you speak and understand the standard German, people would not give up their local dialect, when talking to you. And, you are supposed to understand that too. This country used to have innovation, now it is running only by selling its old brand value. Most of the big German brands are just the sales companies, they buy from other small companies in the EU and sell them at higher price with their own brand name.

[nicolasadrien]

The first step to successful investing is figuring out your goals and risk tolerance either on your own or with the help of a financial professional but is very advisable you make use of a professional like I did. If you get the facts about saving and investing and follow through with an intelligent plan, you should be able to gain financial security over the years and enjoy the benefits of managing your money.

[AmeZidi_]

Wow, the level of bureaucracy in Germany is astounding! That, plus the language barrier and their attitudes toward foreigners is horrible. They want to use the skills of foreign workers to benefit their economy for them to compete globally, but at the same time, they make it incredibly difficult for them to build a life there. You are being used during your peak years, with an uncertain future; I'd instead do Canada or the States.

[korchageen]

Until you speak fluent German you can access <5% job market of Germany with all english speaking competitors which is almost a few hundred to thousand for a single job

[val-schaeffer]

Germany needs to implement a real anti discrimination law. It's not just the language. It's language being weaponised for exclusion purpose. Why exactly are second and third generation Turks and Arabs nowhere to be seen in corporate Germany, while British Indians are in banking, hedge fund, medicine, research, administration, and every other skilled sector in UK. Furthermore Germans are second largest minority group in Denmark and 5th largest in UK. How good are English and Danish skills of average Germans? Even German speaking Switzerland has 10x more expats and skilled migrants.

How far should native German population drop, for you to finally embrace globalization? Funny innit, Germans don't need to learn Chinese or Portuguese to export their goods, but immigrants are expected to analyse Wittgenstein to get the job of a kellner?
Majority of non EU skilled migrants are Indian IT workers. Majority of them leave Germany within few years, if not already spooked by negative reviews and stories of racial discrimination.
Is rampant housing discrimination also because of language barrier?
C1 certification enough to drag ethnic Germans to court for differential and discriminatory treatments? If not, you're just playing shifting goalpost game.

[ayenia]

Unfortunately, this law has not been signed into effect by the executive. There were many important laws on immigration passed last year but were never signed by the federal executive till today, and so have dashed the hope of people who are to benefit from it. Therefore, be wary of raising the hope of people on laws passed by the german lawmakers until such is signed into effect

[Chris.Plunkett]

I am an American IT Architect with 20 years of experience and I go to Germany every year for vacation; I love it there. I would really like to work there one day. Also, as a side note, Jörg your accent is nearly perfect. Only a few things you said give away that you are not a native from the USA; great job. I hope to be able to speak German with no accent like you do English.

[vinayyadatinagaraj]

Strange that there are so many shortage when there are so many qualified IT engineers without jobs after layoffs and being discriminated on lack of language skills. Expecting B2 or C1 level of Germans from a skilled immigrant who is here to fill the gap of skilled labor shortage is really farce. The country will stagnant before that. The immigration laws and these influencers dont tell the whole story.

[oduvan]

Problem is what to do if you have u have ur family back home, your parents are gonna get older and will need you. And you will spend a lot of time not being together with the only people who are really important. Germany doesn't allowed to bring your parents and that's a big one. So I know I will be leaving soon after 10 years in Germany. I feel like I lost my time with my parents

[suhas]

I am engineer from technical field. Willing to relocate Germany for job..i already started learning German. Completed with A1 level. This is great news to me.

[vladimirgorlin]

Germany was good 5-7 years ago, when apartment prices in Berlin were 2-3 times lower and they hired senior devs for 65k. Now there is a huge shortage of housing and 1 bedroom apartment costs around 500k (8k euro per meter )and they still hire people for around 65k. If they want migrants they have to build mich more houses and don't let companies buy them and use as their investments.
I wanted to move to Germany very bad and started to learn the language but now I am so dissapointed with financial part of the deal

[malvichaudhary]

There are so many layoffs in Germany. Housing problem, it is very very difficult to get an apartment in Germany. Everywhere appointments issue, even it is very difficult to get doctors appointment.

[cheluvesha]

These videos are good, but please discuss the present situation in Germany in terms of recession and layoffs.