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Comment by JPLeRouzic | Hacker News Reader

I am not German but I think an oversimplified explanation is that expectations of salaries by employers are so low now, that at the same time:

- They do not expect to pay more than ~1.5K Euros per months (sometimes lower) for most usual service or construction jobs.

- They do not find people ready to work for ~1.5K Euros per month

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010

As WP notes "Some scientists see the wage depression in Germany fostered by the Agenda 2010 as one of the causes of the European debt crisis."

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The minimum wage is 2080 euro / month in Germany, so anybody offering you less than that is not following labor laws.

The unemployment rate is ~3.0%, so the shortage is not due to salary.

The population is growing old, there is a huge influx of high-skilled people, and the young have access to good education: this means that there are a lot of new job created by high earners, but there aren't enough people to work them all.

The difference is gross and net. 2080 € for 40 h is the gross wage, and only since last October (before it was 1800 €).

I can't say much about low-skilled jobs, but in the last couple of years it has been hard to hire developers and electronics engineers. Not neccessarily due to a lack of people, but because many companies don't want to or can't spend enough money to attract talent.

That's roughly it, 1.5K euros is not a lot. If you simply lost your job and went on social benefits, you would get 500€ + Rent from the state, so I don't think for many there is a good reason to have a job paying that low. The inflation is also eating up the savings of many of the lower class, so they're also looking to earn more. The upper management class in germany is however frighteningly conservative about raising wages aggressively.

The lower class in Germany have savings?

If you consider the overdraft limit, yes.

the average wage in Germany is 3000 EUR without taxes .

The average _wage_ (Durchschnittslohn).

grazie

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