Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

My partner, an American, is fluent with the language so it helps. My plan is to make a good amount of savings, take a year or so of sabbatical and finally learn the language. Until that, we go with bar Deutsch.

BUUUUT, even with B2, it's just not enough for avoiding "the look", as you put it. I think you need flawless C1 or something, idk. Don't care anymore lol.

Though I would recommend setting yourself a target of some small (≈10) number of new words to learn every day and practice them during your commute or so. B1 is achievable in under a year with consistent practice. The official word list has 2400 entries: https://www.goethe.de/pro/relaunch/prf/de/Goethe-Zertifikat_...

The way this manifests is different in each country, but the fundamental reason is the same. In the german case, take the words of Messut Ozil, the former footballer - when the German team wins, he is German. Lose, and he is the immigrant. He is ethnically Turkish, i.e. not ethnically German.

The same will apply to your kids as well.

I want to be clear, not every German person is a frothing racist, i would argue that the racists are a minority. It is, however, important to note that the reactions of the individual and the reactions of society can be different, sometimes polar opposites.

In sharp contrast to this are the US and Canada, where there is no shared definition of "white" even though the majority of their populations are ethnically European. In that case, "European" spans everything from Irish and Greek, to French and Austrian. Less than a hundred years back, Irish people were not seen as white. Today, that idea is laughable. The fundamental difference between the US and Canada on one side and German or european society on the other is that the old world is built around exclusion, while the new world is built around inclusion.

This is one important reason why skilled immigrants leave europe, and is also why i left.

- understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar topics such as work, school, or leisure - manage most situations that occur while traveling in German-speaking areas - produce simple, connected text on familiar subjects - describe experiences, events, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and briefly explain your opinions or plans

That seems like a reasonable standard of native language proficiency to ask of people who want to make the county with said language their permanent home.

[1] https://www.sprachenatelier-berlin.de/en/topic/3736.german-p...

I am basing this off my personal experience of going from A1 -> A2 -> half-way through B1 (I dropped after I decided against studying in Germany, but my classmates continued the course). Given that German companies are known for excellent work-life balance, there should be enough spare time to learn German by the 5 year point.

All that being said, I imagine it's harder to learn a language when you have kids and family responsibilities.

I mean, how many CEOs of major German companies are non-German? The country does seem much more insular than the Anglosphere.

Have you even tried to learn German, and if so what is so hard that you can't even get B1, although you stayed long enough to have kids speaking natively the language?

I honestly can't image planning to live in any country for the long term without learning the local language to at least this level.

The point is that immigration can never really become a true meritocracy and even I recognised the privileges I had to reach to US in the first place. The country's ethos, ideas are grandfathered into the law alongwith numerous loopholes or sneaky ways. There is never a social compact where I did X , I deserve Y coming true. I suspect globally we are at the tail end of this type of immigration from Global South to Global North as well

I get the whole “speak the native language” but seems like the appealing countries speak a language most of the world doesn’t care about.

The number of countries with English as the main/official language that are desirable and open to immigrants seems really small.

Sorry to say, but the rule is fair. If you want to be a permanent resident, put in a little bit of effort to integrate into the country that you would like to call home.

eg Chinese both Manderin and Cantonese, Indonesian and Chinese, some Chinese and Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese, these are combinations I have met at work here in Australia aside from "and english"

I've had lifts from Uber drivers who speak 4 tongues fluently.

First of all, if you want to become a resident somewhere you must learn the language. Not should.

Second, no country owes any foreign citizen residency there.

sorry to nitpick on this, but the story did not expand on this despite the pronouncement that there is a reason. Maybe it was subtle, but then let it be subtle.

Well yeah, learning the local language is a requirement for a lot of countries on the path to citizenship.

Your situation makes me think of Japan. Starting about 10 years ago, they introduced a special "fast path" to permanent residence for high income people. I am surprised that it has not triggered more debate in Japanese society. I think the numbers are so small that most people (and politicians) don't really care. The goal was to attract high income people to work and live in Japan... and pay taxes! Germany could consider a similar programme. However, for normies, I am still strongly in favour of language requirements in any nation when applying for permanent residence.

Last:

    > If you ask me for one piece of advice for immigrants and emigrants in Germany, I’d say: life is short—play naked!

That said, personally I'm thankful for Quebec having been the forcing function to learn French.

With no prior formation to reach "intermédiaire avancé" took me about 20 months of studying on the side with one lesson per week for most of that time; usually before or during work hours (partially was a group setting there).

I'm a German native speaker so I'm probably biased / ignorant about some major language hurdles but to me German must be the easier language to pick up for most as it's way more regular.

I think the trick is to make a deliberate choice / opening up to love language and people, speaking with as many native speakers as possible etc. It also really helped me to almost exclusively switch to consuming French news and most of other media.

I'm not a fan of dubbing in general but for learning, Hollywood movies in French have been mostly great same as with German translations. Maybe watch older movies, they used to put in an unreasonable amount of work into those especially.

Computer games I'm personally still playing mostly in French to this day and I know that German translations are usually done with a lot of heart as well.

Edit: do check out https://www.arte.tv/de/ if you haven't - one of our favourites for both French and German of course; probably one of, if not the best TV worldwide. Always especially palpable after having been on youtube for a while too long; just the opposite of engagement bait, wholesome and good journalism and more.

This doesn't apply to higher end jobs though, which are almost always international to begin with.

What's the issue here? Is it me or is it absurd for someone to permanently move to a country and expect to integrate without knowing how how to speak the language?

AFAiK, in most European countries obtaining permanent residence requires at least 5 years of continued residence in the country so it is also a bad look in term of effort to integrate if a person still can't speak the language (maybe not perfectly but at least "good enough") after all that time.

As an Ausländer (who reached C1), I am surprised that you are not talking about the other actual and terrible problems the german society is facing: an aging population relying on immigrants to fill in the gaps, taxes everywhere without the advantages of a strong social system, a very expensive health system but with doctors almost prescribing you tea to fight cancer, crippling solitude inherent to the german culture which even spreads to immigrants -more than half of Berlin lives alone-, a housing market held by boomers and huge corporations (literally no houses below 200k€ in the whole country) which leaves you to rent your whole life to shelter your family, a pro-russia, pro-Afd east Germany vastly undevelopped and uneducated compared to the west. And also food, love, conversations. Germany often feels like the bad sides of northern Europe have been mixed with the bad sides of southern Europe.

And then the glass ceiling does not come at B1, but when you start to notice the difference in behaviour the Germans make between C1 and C2. If you want to pursue your whole career in this country, given how strong the german identity is, you will have to know every single subtlties of the language and culture if you are willing to compete for the next step in your career, for instance a management position.

Really, this country has been in a bad shape for at least five years now. Germany lived until now on its bounce after the reunification, the money poured by the Americans after the war and cheap russian gas. Now it feels like the bill other european countries always had to pay in the last decades has been finally handed to Germany.

How dare they require you speak the local savages' hard language after you've already been working for a multinational corporation for six years.

Such a concise way of saying what I've been thinking for a long time.

Because that's what the post seems to boil down to, but you haven't opined on it (other than refusing to learn B1, which implies the answer somewhat).

B1 by the way is considered doable for a consistent parttime learner in 9 months, and 1-2 years for someone doing weekend studying. That's an average.

For a studious family with higher educational background making 200k a year (this is significantly above average in Germany), you've got both the IQ and the capital for tutoring to do better than average.

Seems like a sensible, useful, necessary and practical bar to set for permanent residence, to me.

That is true of every country.

Are you sure you're not reading too much into that? I've witnessed plenty of times (in the USA) that agreements of a meeting were later 'forgotten' (no doubt often indeed due to poor memory). To the point that it was best to insist on a written record of a meeting.

That's bizarre. In Germany about half the population rents their primary dwelling; many life-long. There's really no rush to buy real estate here.

(not that anybody would fully understand the tax rules)

You should look the other way around. The country is contributing to YOU. You are profitting from Germany.

Overall that comment sounds quite true based on my experience. I had a way better time contracting for foreign companies from Germany

I was born in Germany and have a German passport. When I was a teen my family moved to the US and and have since also gotten my American citizenship. I have been considering moving back. I talked to my aunt who lives in Switzerland who told me not to bother trying to open a Swiss account it’s virtually impossible as long as you have a US passport. Germany is slightly better but at most there are 2-3 (mainly online only) banks where you might be able to get a basic (ie bare bones) account.

The IRS has the ability to compel foreign banks to freeze assets of US citizens living abroad or at least to make it a paperwork nightmare for them. I can understand why a company might not want to promote an individual to senior positions if banks are weary of dealing with them.

It's a serious question because in an ideal (IMHO) society, people can have full and satisfying lives with security and family without becoming a CEO. In the US, for example, there's an obsession with "getting ahead" but, by definition, only so many people can get ahead. And why do they want to? Because, at least in part, a basic job in insufficient to make ends meet in most cases now. This is a form of coercion.

This is orthogonal to the issue of German social inclusion and forms of xenophobia (eg in the housing applications you mention).

Personally I'd rather in a society where everyone's needs are met and it's not a race against a rising tide where only 20% of the population are above it.

Staying in a position for a long part of one's life is a very common situation for many Germans, too. The whole concept of that you must have a career seems to be deeply ingrained in US mentality.

So, I have a strong feeling that a lot of immigrants who feel they hit a glass ceiling are rather used to the USA understanding how a career works, and think because they are not promoted, they are discriminated against, when in reality it's rather that a promotion to a completely new role/title is much more uncommon in Germany than in the USA.

All of this to say that your observation in Germany doesn't sound that different from mine in the US (been here for over 20+ years; been in a manager/director role in data for almost a decade).

While an engineer can usually get by with good English, a manager in a German company with German clients and German bosses also requires excellent command of German. I would think that this would equally apply to any other country and their native language.

Perhaps Germany is a bit unusual in that it fosters a strong small-company culture, with few levels of management. There is no "engineering ladder" in a company with only a single layer of management between engineers and CEO.

I work since over 15 years as SWE and have been job hopping most of the time. Only during one job hunt I put a (professional) photo on my CV. While a photo on the CV is obviously not illegal, employers aren't allowed to demand it since 2 decades. But I agree there is a bias.

While I'm fully German so to say, I have a foreign last name literally from centuries ago. For most of the time this was never an issue, at best a conversation starter. But companies where the daily language is German (hint: these companies usually suck) I definitely had weird situations before. Also with some recruiters, especially from the UK.

Try going to Singapore, Japan, the UK, Netherlands, god forbid France, Germany, Latin America. Try going into engineering in major US companies - you know how hiring works and who is prioritized over whom.

If you are not local or you are not part of the inner circle of management the glass ceiling is there.

Some would say that it's just empirical evidence and they never had this problem. I would call them lucky.

I sometimes wonder if the digestion of East-Germany hasn't somehow hurt a post-war rejuvenated Western&Southern German spirit.

Maybe it's just post-traumatic-stress from the Russian occupation still lingering: 1989 is not that far, generations-wise.

There is hope still... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT7MCko43YqeZ1x55O1DRtw

Any minute now those millions of doctors, lawyers, and engineers from the MENA countries that flooded Germany the past decade will fix all that! Any minute!

I assume.thats your point here, but to bystanders: C2 is nearly native speaker language proficiency, nuanced, precise, eloquent.

if language production is the job, or impeccable understanding is a must have, like as a psychotherapist, then C2 is a reasonable requirement.

in contrast you can study in german language at a German university with C1 proficiency already.

As a German, it sounds like you integrated well.

Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you into those clubs, you just got a piece of paper, not the culture and belonging the locals with ancestry there have.

It's not something you can learn as an adult living in a big international city with lots of expats and international companies, it's something you get from growing up there surrounded by that culture and ethnic ingroup created by your ancestors.

The equivalent for americans would probably be those whose ancestors were there before the civil war but that's a smaller % of the population today vs the more recent immigrants compared to Europe. Sure, there's as much immigration to Europe as well, per-capita as in the US, but a lot of it is undesired and the native Europeans have various cultural and bureaucratic glass ceilings to keep working class immigrants in the least desirable jobs, while they kept the more desirable governmental, academic and managerial jobs.

Not knocking them for it, they're free to run their societies the way they see fit, but then they also shouldn't be surprised when, unlike in the US, the second or third generation migrants growing up in the ghettos who are full citizens now, decide to blow themselves up, shoot up a cafe or drive a truck through a crowd, because of how unaccepted and held down they feel by the native European society.

The issue I see seems to be on how US and EU treat integration of migrants. In the US you ge equal opportunities and freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone, while in the EU you get endless strict rules and welfare which not only don't compensate the glass ceilings and isolation, it also pisses off the locals to see their high taxes going to foreigners who don't integrate. The other reason might be that migration to the US is more from Canada and latin america which is culturally similar to the US, while EU migration is mostly from africa and middle east which are very different culturally.

My point being, everyone in America is more or less an "immigrant" if you go back enough on their family tree, but the Native Americans.

There just is not the kind of immigration culture as in America. Some people don’t even have a notion why anyone would want to come to Europe.

I'm German. Very rarely is the issue that people will in principle treat her as foreign, there's sometimes still the stereotype that you "can never be German" but in most places in the country that's not my experience.

However what is important is that you need to elbow your way in. There's a saying "nur sprechenden Menschen kann geholfen werden*. (only people who speak up can be helped). If you think someone's gonna carry you in that's not gonna happen. That's the biggest mistake I see immigrants make. It's a private and personal culture but people respect someone from the outside who shows initiative, and nobody is easily offended by someone being assertive, that's seen as a good thing.

It's not the kind of place where you can just wait and people will read what you want off your face. Doesn't even work for Germans, if you feel left out, you'll have to stand up and say you want to be in.

As a native German, I actually have difficulties with concepts like "identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]" or "naturalization". I really would say these are concepts that US-Americans (or people who were "shaped" by US mentality) seem to deeply care about, but Germans very typically don't.

So, my opinion/advice is: she should simply abandon such concepts ("identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]", "naturalization") that, as a native German, are simply far away from the mentality that I observe in daily life.

Don't forget that a unified Germany was a concept that only involved in the 19th century, so "Germany" is more of a somewhat "synthetic" unification of various historical, and very different, federal states where the unifying element is rather what is now considered to be a shared language, ethicity, culture and history.

With this in mind, the advice should be obvious:

This woman should concentrate on getting really good in German, and learn about the more than 1000 years of (what is now German) culture and history, and additionally learn about the laws and rules to survive daily life. Otherwise, she should live her life.

What she should not do, is caring about what "identifying as" or "feeling like a" German means - she should put this out of her mind, since modern Germany is a very synthetic unification of what were historically very different sovereign nations that share what is now considered to be a common language, ethicity, culture and history.

well, because she isn't one. had she moved to China, she wouldn't magically become Chinese.

I say this as someone who myself emigrated from America. Nobody calls me "that American guy." I'm just "that guy".

When I (German) was on vacation in the Netherlands, I found it dystopic that you could often not pay cash, but had to use card. This "I don't want to be tracked" mentality is deeply ingrained into the feeling of many Germans.

So, I would rather call this not a bug, but a feature.

I'm from the Netherlands(also not living there anymore) and I recognize this arrogance there, too.

And at the same time, almost paradoxically, the Netherlands has an inferiority complex.

Nice disconnect from reality.

90k is more than twice the median income in Germany, and by extension, more than twice the median income of most European countries.

If it were the Anglosphere that had very restrictive laws about store hours/days of operation, and Germany/Austria with pretty much unlimited hours, this would be the #1 topic brought up in any online discussion whatsoever about the US/UK/etc. But because of DACH's smaller cultural visibility, it isn't brought up nearly so often in actuality.

I think things have improved a little bit over the past few years – one large retail park near us advertises "late opening" (7 pm! ha!) on Thursdays — but it's still difficult to run errands during the week. I don't understand why it makes sense economically to only have your store open when no one with a 9-5 job can shop there.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law

Really, it's just what you are accustomed with.

Stores closing on Sunday is a good thing I think, it makes it easier for families to have a day together and kind of resets the week. On Saturdays they are also open until 8pm, some even until 10pm or so.

>I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.

You need to yell "Moin" very loudly. If you are in Southern Germany, you need to yell "MOIN" twice as loud to establish dominance.

Music and video calls without headphones on all transport all the time. Shoes and socks off on train seats. Zombies barging into you constantly. Nobody letting people off the train.

Throwing rubbish on the ground. Leaving it on trains and buses.

Vaping on the tube

Pushing through the barriers at stations is normalised

Everyone does whatever the hell they like everywhere all the time. Constant antisocial behaviour. It's hell. An absolute epicenter of selfishness

I dream of a rule based society like Germany or UK of years ago

Edit: am a Brit but wouldn't live in London for love nor money. Obviously a lot of those issues aren't just in London. This isn't "foreigner repeating right wing talking points" people love trying here

My theory is that in areas with lower densities of foreign nationals, you'd benefit more socially form learning the local language.

I disagree: for many jobs, it is expected that you have a decent level of English, but at least in Germany, you are often not immersed a lot in English. So you have to get decent in English with barely any immersion.

I thus have a feeling that because many Germans had to learn hard to get somewhat decent in English on their own, they have the same expectation on immigrants to learn really hard on their own to get good in German fast (without demanding immersion).

That is wildly false. First of all the availability of eating out options is directly influenced by where you are (e.g. in Berlin there is incredible variety of cuisines, price ranges and healthiness), and secondly almost every food or grocery you buy in Germany is of higher quality than the US equivalent.

I remember my shock when every single food item I bought in the US had sugar in it.

But I'd argue for most people getting into the car to get takeout is not very common.

I don't think it's just the Germans and there's definitely an additional factor at play.

So it feel a bit more complicated than "germans are racist, BAD". Anecdotally I've heard that it's hard for any other nationality to do business in germany, simply because they prefer to do business with other germans. It's their country, we just need to accept those cultural differences, and their right to do as they please in their own country.

There's plenty of countries whose laws or attitudes I don't agree with, and that I just don't visit or have any ambition of staying in. China, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Chad are a few examples.

Last year we decided to move to my home country because of "too many things" but also fed up of feeling an immigrant.

Few months ago I met a German family living around here in a coastal area. I asked them why they moved here and they answered me straight to my face "Because in Germany there are too many immigrants". I think the joke tells itself.

In Austria I've always made an effort to stay inclusively in English in these settings but it's probably normal to fall back to default language in most countries and cultures especially when the context is not about the work per se.

I'm an English native speaker, new in Germany, and learning German. I personally find it really annoying and awkward when other foreigners come into German social situations and expect or push them to speak English.

- What right do I have as the foreigner to intrude and get them to speak English?

- Social life in another language has it's own shared culture, jokes, and social cues. It's not fair or realistic to make people give that all up because some foreigner walked near the circle.

- It's my problem that I'm not yet fluent. It's not their problem that they're not speaking English.

- Some people are shy about their English skills, and they do not want to be pushed to speak English in front of others, in a group social setting.

- If you want exposure and practice, these are the golden opportunities! Take a humble learners position. Be quiet, understand as much as you can, and say what little bits you can, in German, not in English. Then study, study, study as much as you can in your time alone.

I hear fellow foreigners bemoaning the fact that they can't speak German yet, but these same people will inadvertently push English into every social situation they walk into. This just doesn't work. If you want to learn the language of the land, you have to let them speak it.

I find Germans are incredibly friendly and welcoming, especially when you come in humbly, trying to learn, and don't push everyone to speak English.

The taxes seem largely fine relative to the cost of living there, with people living in poorer regions at an advantage even due to the Freibetrag.

1. Defensiveness; one could describe it as "Stockholm syndrome"

2. What outsiders don't understand about the language thing is that it's not about how much German you need to get along in daily life. That's a similar challenge everywhere in the world.

The crux is that in Germany, correct use of the language is a social status thing, more so than in other places. Any person, whether German or foreigner, who appears to have difficulty with the language, is easily looked down upon.

Not really anymore. All the good ponds have all been fished out by now.

Housing is in short supply in every livable city in the western world and the job market is tight right now, so if you move there now, you're one, increasing labor competition for the locals, and two, rising housing prices for the locals. THe only locals happy with this arrangement are the corporation hiring you and the landlord taking your money.

The world has min-maxed itself into oblivion that it's already reached saturation point. We're way passed the balance point, everything is fucked, there's no magic place on the planet where things are nice for everyone.

It's a lot of misinformation and funding from too many countries, for a long time.

What's impressive is how much this tension had actually been holding on, which goes to show that education actually plays an important role when dealing with misinformation.

Sadly it was successful in the UK.

As for including the locals lives, how? You might be bringing skills they need, or money. Do you mean purely socially? That is very subjective.

I think the media exaggerate the hostility. IMO most of the hostility here in the UK is aimed at 1) illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and 2) Muslims. There is also rising hostility to Jews, but usually from an entirely different group to those hostile to Muslims.

Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the language and customs.

Much more than any other country on Earth.

The United States.

> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media?

The world is turning hostile to immigration because the media (and social media sites) highlight and repeat the bad anecdotes, while barely mentioning the actual data showing positive outcomes.

Not the concept itself, but the insane numbers. Even South Africa is having "anti-migrant" protests (by the _black_ population; important detail, due to history).

Having 1-2% of your population come in as migrants* is pretty nuts; no negative migration afterwards; number only goes up. I cannot see how this is going to end well in the long run.

*: This is for the Netherlands, for the last 5 years since 2024 (that's the latest numbers I got from our Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)). That is _just_ economic migration. It's insane. I made some visualizations: https://tbataafschebroederschap.nl/projects/autochtoonse-ned...

Get born outside the western world and migrate to Europe as a skilled worker and your live increases significantly as well as that it your family. Same goes for the society you live in.

I tried two countries so far (>5 year in both) and there were pluses and minuses in each. Which are different to the pluses and minuses in my home country.

I think that one will (generally) evolve and adopt some habits of the country you immigrated too, while giving up some habits you had before. The result? You might be a more complete person (because you become aware of the habits, and can choose to some extent) but on the other hand you will not belong anywhere any-more (you will not adopt some stupid habits of the new country, but you did gave up some stupid habits that you had).

There is a big problem with mass migration and people entering a country with antithetical values and beliefs.

I view it as growing pains. We inhabit a highly interdependent and interconnected world now, the economy is extremely global. Nation states as the primary governance model simply don't make sense anymore, and the world needs to adjust and find a new political organizing principle. The modern concept of nation state is itself a historical concept, it really arose approx. 18th cen. has worked ok for a while and now we need some new governance concept that is a better fit for our highly interconnected and global world.

What we are seeing now are reactions against what in my view is the inevitable decline of nation based organization and the formation of something else. The "old system" is acting out in an attempt to save itself, in a refusal to evolve. People don't like change. The writing is on the wall though. The degree to which every nation is now completely entangled with every other makes nations themselves as an operational concept inefficient and untenable.