Why Germany Is Better at Training Its Workers
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
- In the UK, a lot of people have degrees, but it doesn't seem to matter what the degree is in. You have English and History grads trading bonds. You used to be able to get an options trading job straight out of school (some of my old bosses joined at 16, and are now the movers and shakers in certain option markets) but not anymore.
- In Switzerland (which I think is somewhat similar to Germany) not that many people have degrees, but everyone appears to be trained for their industry from a young age. My private banker is around my age, but started as a banking apprentice at age 16. He's a major asset for his international bank, and seems to know everything that folks in London know.
What are the pros and cons? I suppose if you do a degree in the UK, you can find a job in many different industries. But you'll probably have a steeper learning curve, since you won't be learning about bonds until you land at the desk. In the Germanic world, you'll somewhat hit the ground running. But you might find it hard to change industries, which is a problem at the moment for finance folks (major job cuts at the two Swiss investment banks).
The result of that is the Switzerland has managed to get most of the high quality production that requires special knowledge and the rest of Europe is fighting for the scrapes.
They could cope if it was something they understood but if it was a completely new problem they were generally at a loss. They tried to replace the contractors from my company three or four times and always ended up asking for them back after a month or two.
Obviously this is a generalisation based on working in one place but as I found Switzerland very rule based I wondered if that extended to their problem solving.
It's much easier for them to be hired into the sort of positions that will catapult their career to the top in the least amount of time.
If you're fresh out of university you'll have a ramp up time too as you said. At my previous company we much preferred people doing an apprenticeship for 2 years than having someone with a bachelor. Because they were significatly cheaper during those two years, while usually require only slightly more training.
We were never able to take someone straight from university and put them on a project.
> But you might find it hard to change industries, which is a problem at the moment for finance folks (major job cuts at the two Swiss investment banks).
Do you have any source for that? Genuinely curious, because I haven't heard about that beeing an issue.
No, that's speculation. It's well known the big banks have been reducing head count, and I suppose that most people in such a system will at least start by trying to find a seat in the same industry. At least one guy I know has been looking for work for ages.
Anyway, I find it a terribly boring and ignorant idea, to work in one profession all life, without much change of pace. or chances to gain valuable knowledge from dfferent fields. Although, it sounds comfortable enough to understand why so many would not want to change a running system. As the saying goes, let the cobbler stay with his lasts (!g what's a last anyway?) edit: originally the saying ment to stay within ones competence.
"With new technology transforming work across a range of sectors, more and more businesses are struggling to find workers with the skills to man new machines and manage new processes."
How would apprenticeship explain why a 40 year old German machinist is more likely to be employed than a 40 year old American machinist?
There are many people, in the USA, who are in their 40s and 50s and who are unemployed. Apprenticeship, in its traditional form, would not help them.
There is another way to look at this, which is to say that the German economy is really weak, but the weakness of the economy was hidden by the introduction of the euro, and the irresponsible lending that German banks engaged in, which allowed an unsustainable debt-fueled bubble to appear in Southern Europe, which created a huge market for German capital goods, which gave Germany a big export surplus. Consider the summary that Paul Krugman gives of Wolfgang Münchau description of the situation:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/german-weakness/
Germany came out the big winner of the euro, therefore its export industry is strong, therefore industry can still engage in long-term investments in its workers, and the labor unions in Germany are very strong, so they can force corporations to spend on training programs. All of which helps. But the roots of German success, in 2014, originate with the great financial changes of the last 25 years, and that success makes German's training programs look great. But to suggest that Germany does a good job training its workers, and therefore the Germany economy is strong, is probably wrong on at least 2 counts:
1.) it probably reverses cause and effect
2.) the German economy is not really strong
He can sketch a picture and create a tool from the sketch in essentially the same day, whereas his counterparts take just as long just to sketch the tool in a CAD program of some sort.
He has always had a problem with CAD design. He can navigate it, but he has difficulty with actual modeling. Luckily he is at such a rank in his profession to where he has an intern assigned to him to translate his graph paper sketches into document-able CAD files and do other computerized clerical work that he's not up on.
Sure there are some times when knowing how things were done decades ago is useful if you have to repair something, or do something unusual. But what drives machine tools today is throughput, throughput, throughput and the techniques used by today's CNC machining centers completely obsolete entire categories of tools from years past.
What is more likely is that a machinist who was experienced in operating manual machines, and who has modernized his training can command a premium because his skill gained in doing things the manual way give him a better ability to program a controller to do it more efficiently (CAM software is only so good).
> Exxon has stupendous institutional capacity and depth of fundamentals and resources that swallow any capacity facebook could ever even fathom to have or make.
Exxon is a much bigger company than Facebook, but the U.S. is a much larger economy that "...swallow[s] any capacity [Germany] could even fathom to have or make". How does your analogy hold again?
Furthermore, many economists don't agree with your proposition that Germany has strong fundamentals. Just look at the Paul Krugman post at the top of the thread.
Edit: removed first sentence because it was too aggressive.
The author acknowledges the dilemma that to maintain competitiveness, the US will have to do something substantive. To match the Germans in skill set infrastructure, the education system will have to reform to look more German, in a way. Exactly how seems unclear.
The German economy is strong compared to many other nations. Currently the German economy is the strongest in Europe.
The German economy was also for many decades before the Euro the strongest of Europe, that was one reason for the strong currency (German Marks).
The sayings of the "weakness" of the German economy was and is a political claim that was made to reduce the workers costs in Germany.
You must also distinguish between productivity (which always was high in Germany in the last decades) and attractiveness to the financial sector (stock etc.). And the second thing is, I guess, what Krugman/Muenchau really meant. And yes, Germany was not so attractive for some time, because growth and ROI where not so high as in the US for example.
But I think, that are two different things. One is about productivity and strength of industries and the other is about the capitalistic demand for more and more growth.
The United States is a net importer, if it quit trading with the world tomorrow American employment would go up. The opposite is true of Germany. Its domestic demand is nowhere near sufficient to absorb current production. Moreover, Germany's trade surplus is substantially the result of trade with Eurozone basket case countries whose trade imbalances are not sustainable.
You also conflate the strength of the Mark with the strength of the German economy. The Mark was a strong currency in the postwar era because the Bundesbank tended to pursue "strong Mark" policies, often to the detriment of the German economy. As recently as 1990 Germany was considered the "sick man of Europe".
> The United States is a net importer,
Because of massive overconsumption, not a particular 'strong economy'. This is a country of consumers.
> if it quit trading with the world tomorrow American employment would go up.
Good luck trying that.
> Moreover, Germany's trade surplus is substantially the result of trade with Eurozone basket case countries whose trade imbalances are not sustainable.
Germany trades world wide. It has for example a trade SURPLUS with China. Because it is able to compete on the world-market.
> You also conflate the strength of the Mark with the strength of the German economy. The Mark was a strong currency in the postwar era because the Bundesbank tended to pursue "strong Mark" policies,
That Mark was strong, because Germany had the strongest economy in Europe and thus could run a strong currency policy.
> often to the detriment of the German economy. As recently as 1990 Germany was considered the "sick man of Europe".
'the sick man of Europe' was a propaganda term by the UK/US press to claim the superiority of their 'service economy'. Actually what happened between 1989 and 2000 was that Germany absorbed the reunification with a collapsed East Germany. Suddenly millions of people from a formerly 'socialist' country were joining West Germany. This was hugely expensive and the problems are still visible for another two decades.
Yeah, a bit of history gives the context.
That's the opposite of how things really work. If you run a strong currency in an export economy, you will get sick, because your trade partners will no longer be able to afford your exports.
That's how it works for Germany for decades.
No one outside Germany cares what a Mercedes S-Class costs. They are buying them independent of the price.
> because your trade partners will no longer be able to afford your exports.
Tell that the Chinese...
This statement contradicts the entire theory of supply and demand. Also, my family owned a Mercedes once, and those things break down too damn often.
>Tell that the Chinese...
The Chinese are running a weak-currency policy.
It doesn't. If it would, the theory would be wrong. Cars like the Mercedes S-Class are not sold based on price - it's a luxury good. Advanced machines for factories are not bought primarily on price - otherwise Germany would have lost these markets long to cheaper competition.
You trade with the world because it makes stuff cheaper. Without trading you would produce that stuff less efficiently, so prices would go up relative to salaries, so people would need to reduce consumption, not only of the stuf that was imported, but of everything.
Whether the end result would be increase or decrease in employement isn't obvious, but I think decrease in employement is more probable.
The same way as the employment rate is probably higher in North Korea. On a more serious note, it has been proven for at least 150 years that Corn Laws and import restrictions do not work, in the best case scenario they are a huge inconvenience for the home consumers, in the worst case scenario they generate famines and national tragedies.
- Product designed and developed in Cupertino, CA
- Product build in China
- Product build on machines from Germany
- Product imported into the US
- Product sold to consumers
----
- Machine designed and developed in Germany
- Machine build in Germany
- Machine imported into China
- Machine sold to Flexconn & Co.
Now think, where productivity takes place.
/me ducks in cover :-)
This is strictly a cultural bias, in the same way in the US apprenticing at all is antagonized, and can easily change.
I know you mean that Germany has that cultural perception still but still has higher employment matching, I'm just saying it is not a technical problem that you can only apprentice in your early years.
Germany has been an industrial powerhouse for a long time, and their focus on utterly owning niche markets has been a huge competitive force for many years. The euro helped, but the story doesn't stop there.
I love South Carolina, but it seems like a particularly lousy place to be an industrial worker to me.
The German 40-year old machinist also tends to have a right to continuous training, to be provided by the employer. Since the employer likely already spent quite some money on that employee, they’ll have a higher interest in securing this continuous training and make sure that their employee stays up to date.
Other countries without that mechanism suffered much more.
In Germany we basically loosened the rules for Kurzarbeit (not officially, I think, but the authorities were much more lenient than usual about the legal requirements), because it was a mechanism already in place.
That last part is important. A mechanism that only works okay, but is already implemented everywhere is much better than the perfect mechanism, specifically tailored to your needs, but impossible to roll out on short notice.
Sure, but apprenticeship means there's a culture of on-the-job learning and teaching, and strong trade unions lead to german workers being entitled to continuous learning and improvement.
Having apprenticeships means moving 'school' closer to the 40-year olds. Maybe that 40 year old is forced to stay up-to-date by his 20-year old apprentice?
And your Germany/Southern Europe argument made me think of the China/USA relation. How good that analogy is? I wouldn't dare take a guess at.
As part of a master/apprentice relationship the master is expected to teach the apprentice how to use the brand new machining center or at least how to use it to make money. A master who can't teach, or at least set an example, is going to have employment issues. Life on the floor was not really different than my experiences in IT... boss selects a new tool, you will use it in at most a couple days of fooling around, or find a new job, doesn't matter if its machining or IT. If you're the wisest employee, you can expect to get assigned to the new toy and to train the other employees informally if nothing more advanced.
There is/was a continuous and constant struggle between the school instructor component of an apprenticeship and the masters on the job. The instructors want cool sexy toys and resume stuffers like teaching cutting edge tools, but the masters on the job want the instructors to teach the basics. There is also a lot of general experience aka "we don't do centerless grinding machining here, so I hope your classroom instructor is covering at least the basics". And the masters continually complained about instructors who taught the kids the basics of g-code but not how to read a print, lots of "walk before you run" complaining.
At least this is how it was at a former employer for machinists, tool and die makers, millwrights, and industrial electricians. I have no first hand data about plumbers and carpenters.
Something that confuses youth culture on HN is it takes a kid 16 or so years of study to learn "2014 work". So they freak out that a 40 year old dude would have to stop working completely for 16 years to learn "2024 work". Reality of course is that things develop VERY slowly and most of the 16 years of school are focused on 2000-4000 years of human development. Actual development is so slow in most large industries like machining or IT coding, that its not hard at all to keep up other than anecdotes and complainers and people who've basically retired on the job.
This is not a popular view, but I do agree. If one learns the basics, the javascript framework of the week becomes much less intimidating as an obstacle to professional success. There are rarely new things in software development, but the do come along (big data and machine learning).
In the meanwhile Germany added 20 million people from a collapsed country/economy...
> which created a huge market for German capital goods, which gave Germany a big export surplus.
Germany had an huge export surplus before, during and after it.
> Germany came out the big winner of the euro, therefore its export industry is strong, therefore industry can still engage in long-term investments in its workers
Germany did that before the Euro and is still doing it.
> and the labor unions in Germany are very strong, so they can force corporations to spend on training programs.
The companies are more than willing to train their workers. No unions necessary.
> Germany does a good job training its workers, and therefore the Germany economy is strong, is probably wrong on at least 2 counts: > 1.) it probably reverses cause and effect
There is no 'cause and effect'. It makes much more sense to model economy as a system with multiple feedback loops.
The education and training systems constantly creates new workers with relatively high skill sets. You can guess the effects from that and you can also easily guess why the companies are doing this.
> 2.) the German economy is not really strong
That would not make any sense to say. 80+ million people, fourth largest economy in the world.
Not 'at the moment' - Germany has been a strong exporter for almost five decades now...
> then Germany will find itself in real trouble.
Since Germany runs this model since a long time, it has a lot of experience dealing with its effects.
Germany has not had anything like this level of current account surplus before. It is entirely due to mistakes in macro economics (wrong parity within the Euro and a refusal to boost domestic demand).
Sadly Germans seem unable to understand that their surplus is not a sign of economic success, but the result of misguided policies that keep the rest of Europe in recession.
...which in turn strengthens the German position, right? In turn giving them de facto economic success?
That has a simple reason: Germany is a larger country in a unified Europe now. After recovering from the effects of the reunification, you have now a stronger and larger economy with more and larger trading partners. For the larger export success are a few simple reasons responsible:
* the east european market directly next to Germany is now larger and easier to access. Poland.
* Germany is no 33% larger than before the reunification. Once the added economy started to recover from the effects of reunification and many investments in East Germany were done, the now larger economy, contcentrated back on the european and world market.
* globalization has nicely enhanced the reach of even small companies in rural Germany to trade with even remote locations
> It is entirely due to mistakes in macro economics
That's entirely wrong.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/germany-current-accou...
The current surplus is not a feature of German productivity but the result of having an undervalued Euro and depressed domestic demand.
> The current surplus is not a feature of German productivity but the result of having an undervalued Euro and depressed domestic demand.
The Euro is not really undervalued. The current surplus is a feature of Germany's long term export oriented industry.
How can the Euro be 'under-valued' in Germany?
In many cases, the job that a 40 or 50 year old machinist in the US had, is gone. The company is gone. The plant is abandoned or town down. The equipment was shipped off to China.
Steve Van Loan, president of Sullivan Palatek Inc. in Michigan City, said
job hopping is becoming more of a problem. “They get an offer for more money
across town, and they’re gone,” he said. Wages on average at his firm, which
makes compressors that power drills and other tools, are rising 4% to 5%
this year, compared with 2% to 3% in recent years, Mr. Van Loan said.
“Everybody got so skinny back in the days when we were laying off everybody,”
he said. “Now that the Midwest is getting some manufacturing back, it’s just
tough to find workers” with the needed skills. [1]
Both the White House and governors are trying to fight a so-called skills
gap among U.S. workers that many businesses blame for the slow labor-market
recovery. Although plenty of Americans are looking for work, employers often
lament a lack of qualified workers—particularly young people.
Germany, in contrast, has a long record of finding a stronger fit between
employees' skills and employers' demands. The success is reflected in a
youth unemployment below 8%, the lowest of any advanced country and about
half of the U.S. level. The apprenticeship system is credited as a leading
driver of what many European economists call the German labor-market
"miracle." [2]
[2] http://online.wsj.com/articles/skills-gap-bumps-up-against-v...
ps -- sorry for the wsj links, google the stuff after the final slash and you can bypass the paywall
That doesn't seem out of line with inflation. If they didn't increase, that means they would be stagnant as the cost of living increased, which would be bad for the employees.
The good ones are doubling salaries, and the conclusion drawn is that millennials are not loyal!
Because Germans have the idea of "Germans" and the politicians do at least to some degree try to improve the living standards for all?
The same thing in China. Whatever the government in China may be, they still try to rise the standard of living for all.
So it is no surprise that China considers to adopt the German apprentice system and both, China and Germany have very good public transport.
"America is a business" as Brad Pitt said in one movie. Both, heavy investment into public infrastructure and something like a subsidized apprenticeship would always be seen as "interfering with the free market" in the US. Hope it ends well.
What specifically do you mean by the 60%?
Subsidies? Living standards through economic growth.
Military? Living standards better if not conquered. Improved if we conquer or control something good.
My Dictatorship? Only I can be trusted to give the people the living standards they need.
The problem with saying all of the budget improves people's living standards is that it gets you nowhere. I just drew the line at direct payments.
Another example would be health insurance. The US is approaching 20% of GDP and they are not getting anything for it (Germany 10%, UK 7.5%, numbers out of my head). Until Obamacare, only around 80% of the US population had coverage and they the US population had a lower life expectancy than the UK or Germany. China would never let run things so out of hand.
(After Germany and the US, I live now in China. This makes me reflect on a lot of things. Not all is good here but here are opportunities. I regret that I did not come earlier to China.)
These kind of articles make the implicit assumption that countries are the same except for being located in different locations, and that successful institutions from one can be transplanted to another. But each is an organic entity, with different histories and cultures
I have started trying to swap the two around in my own language, to avoid stereotyping people based on class.
In other words, by the time you're in high school, you're either in the "university path" or the "trade path"?
I honestly don't know but it would be interesting to hear thoughts. Does it make it harder to switch careers later in life?
> Skeptical Americans worry that the European model requires tracking, and it’s true, German children choose at age 10 among an academic high school, a vocational track, or something in between. But it turns out there’s a lot of opportunity for trainees to switch tracks later on. They can go back to school to specialize further or earn a master craftsman’s certificate or train as a trainer in the company’s apprenticeship program—and many do. What education reformers call “lifelong learning” is still a distant dream for most Americans. In Germany, it’s a reality.
Yes, and it's one of the sillier parts of the German educational system. That said, recent school reforms have at least started to mitigate it a bit. The problem here is not some form of tracking as such – not everyone has the same talents – but that it happens so early (after fourth grade) and that the differences between school types are so huge.
That said, these days it's at least less of a permanent decision. For example, my niece initially finished school after 10th grade ("Mittlere Reife"), then did an apprenticeship, then went back to school, working on her abitur now and will likely go to college afterwards.
Depending on where you live, children may also be able to join one of the comprehensive schools and bypass the traditional system.
Yeah, but only few have the discipline to go back to school after having earned "real money" already.
The international equivalent would be graduating, getting some work experience and then going back to grad school. I don't think many people manage to do that either. But in this case it's even more difficult because you have to go back to high school basically.
Apprenticeships only pay off for the company if they can expect the apprentices stay with them for a few years after the education is done.
And in Germany there's a big cultural bias for keeping jobs long years. My impression is that that's not the case in the USA.
And this is why it will never happen until there is a massive cultural shift. Americans and American firms have accepted and even embraced the tragedy of the commons in a wide variety of areas. Where most people realize a race to the bottom is something to be avoided, in America, it's something to be won.
However, these tracks are only superficially about academic success. The reality is that it's more about ethnicity and parent's background. Turkish children are seen by many Germans as genetically less intelligent than their "pure" German peers. You won't hear that sentiment very often, and I find this attitude absolutely horrifying, but this has been shown by social studies and opinion polls. The result is that children from a foreign or poor background have far less chances to get into the academic track, and a lot of people think that's purely because of different abilities.
The result is a system that struggles with social mobility, compared to other European countries. And some part of it actually has to do with early vocational training, because choosing an apprenticeship when being capable of a well-paying university degree does hold back social mobility.
This is going to sound pretty harsh, but while it is hard to generalize, there is a strong tendency for children who come from Turkish backgrounds (especially boys) to be disruptive influences in class. This starts at an early age, and thus tracking tends to dump these children in Realschule and Hauptschule.
This disruption in class is especially the case with female teachers, for whom the boys hold little respect for. Their culture appears to hold little respect for women in the workplace. The father's hold similar disrespecting views at parent evenings as well. The effect is reversed with male teachers.
This is cultural problem on both sides and as a result the children lose out. Children that could have been successful academically are penalized both by the system's inherent failure to integrate migrants and as a direct result of their family's misogyny.
Germany likes to think that it is "Multikulti" [1], but my experiences so far seem to show a multi-culturalism that is a "pretty sheen" over the top of suspicion and disrespect. London has a far greater multi-culturalism than I have seen here in Germany.
Teaching is a popular career path for many women in Germany. It offers many benefits (especially as a civil servant). That isn't going to change (and nor should it). So if Turkish boys do have a problem with that, then they need to get over it.
If this is the case, Turkish boys changing their attitudes should automatically lead to teachers changing theirs. If the teachers changed their attitudes, you wouldn't expect Turkish boys to change theirs.
Why both? And why just a cultural problem?
Did you mean that the Germans could/ought to smack the disrespectful Turkish kids around and that that would make things improve? Otherwise I can't make sense of the idea that there is blame on both sides.
'There is a well documented effect in that the teacher's
expectations are reflected both in subjective grades and
objective performance.'
Turkish boys have a greater tendency to misbehave than German boys (and Danish boys, Swedish boys, etc).
We seem to agree that those Turkish boys (and their parents) ought to change their attitudes. And everybody else around them also needs them to change their attitudes. So who is the other party who needs to change?
Edit: inserted the word 'also' + emphasized to word 'needs' for clarity.
And when you are from a muslim background and you want to disrespect your teacher, you'll choose other words and justifications than a German would. I'd caution against overinterpreting juvenile power plays in terms of religious biases though.
In Germany, I almost never hear "Multikulti" except from extreme right-wing people, and those who share racist opinions, but don't consider themselves Racist. (It's "The Truth", how can it be racism?)
There is a well documented effect in that the teacher's expectations are reflected both in subjective grades and objective performance.
Another confusing factor is that most Turkish "immigrant" children are anything but immigrants. Their parents or grandparents immigrated to Germany decades ago and helped build the country. But they were low-skilled laborers. And their children suffer from the same adverse selection problem as German "underclass" children do.
It's just so much easier to pin this complex problem on a mysterious genetic factor that makes Turks dumber.
'but while it is hard to generalize, there is a strong
tendency'
'The truth is that most muslim women in Germany,
especially the Turkish ones, don't even wear a
headscarf.'
'I almost never hear "Multikulti" except from extreme
right-wing people, and those who share racist opinions,
but don't consider themselves Racist.'
'There is a well documented effect in that the teacher's
expectations are reflected both in subjective grades and
objective performance.'
'Another confusing factor is that most Turkish
"immigrant" children are anything but immigrants. Their
parents or grandparents immigrated to Germany decades ago
and helped build the country.'
'pin this complex problem on a mysterious genetic factor
that makes Turks dumber'
Bottom line is that a misogynistic cultural attitude is prevalent in Turkish society. That misogyny concerns the role of women in the work place. It especially causes problems in schools where women teachers hold positions of authority over young men who do not like, and are not used to, that scenario. As a result come discipline problems that (as you so eloquently put it) 'the teacher's expectations are reflected both in subjective grades and objective performance' results.
It is a vicious cycle. Hence, I went out of my way to state that both sides are to blame. You appear to have overlooked that fact.
The pure fact that there are multiple cultures in Germany is very evident. And it's not just immigrants. Point is: You can't get rid of people that don't suit your cultural preferences. You can't force assimilation. Instead, this constant "assimilation debate" is more a means to scare off foreigners.
You didn't say anything about genetics, but others do. Especially the "Sarrazin school" of racism. Strongly associating faults and delinquency to cultural backgrounds or religion isn't that much better, though.
Most (purportedly) muslim students don't exhibit mysogyny against female teachers. It is simply wrong to ascribe most or all of these problems to misogyny, even if this explanation is so simple and logical.
It also doesn't point to a solution for these problems.
How is that relevant to your argument?
It's a symbol of conservative muslim faith (in the eyes of Germans) and subjugation of women in general. Most muslim organizations and German politicians with a turkish background actually appeal to fellow muslims not to wear headscarves.
My point was that there is no widespread refusal of integration, and that misogyny in muslim Germans is usually exaggerated. I didn't want to explain that too thoroughly because the post would have been even longer.
I wonder what other ways would work better?
Currently there is a perverse segregation going on. German parents (and any immigrants who know what's going on) send their children to schools who have a low rate of immigrant students. And with good justification. But this also means that the best teachers and other resources go to these schools, while creating schools with lots of problems, worse equipment, worse teachers and a thorough helping of students whose parents don't object to low quality.
There were instances where children from Roma families were put into special education without any examination.
It's impossible to determine genetic differences in intelligence between different ethnicities. Twin studies don't work for that. One study which compared children of German women and black US soldiers did not find a difference between those children and German children raised under similar circumstances.
What we do know is that differences in ethnicities don't tend to hold up against other explanatory factors.
We also know about the effect of subjective bias on student-teacher relationships, and a strong tendency of believing other ethnicities to be less intelligent.
UK and France thought industry as dead decades ago and lost their know-how by moving plants overseas.
Meanwhile Germany has kept his knowledge in-house and trains the best technician, ingenieur especially in machinenbau (mechanical engineering).
A decade ago at the KIT, machinenbau graduate were most sought-after by companies than computer scientist.
(btw I'm french)
What has mostly gone is the "factory floor", large businesses with lots of workers to engage in labour disputes with. You can do car manufacturing in the UK so long as senior management culture isn't British or it's a tiny luxury car company. But British Leyland are as dead as old Detroit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_Kin...
I'll let Michael Pettis explain it: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/07/no_the_span...
You can see the result during the financial crisis: employment was going up, not down.
The workers and the unions actually got something back from the companies: job security in difficult times.
As for the "cost factor" for the companies...even if still at apprenticeship level, the people are working, even if it's just minor tasks in the first few months, so give them a damn salary. Here in Germany the average is about 700$/month on average, with salary increasing by about 50$ each year. Plus a decent chance to get a full time job at the same company after your apprenticeship is done.
The firms won't need to establish programs. The states will have to establish schools for that, not the firms.
"Germany strong economy" is an illusion. They are putting money in Spain, Portugal and Greece, because otherwise the euro and Germany will be totally f* up
In case you understand German: "Bei einer geringfügigen Beschäftigung trägt der Arbeitgeber Lohnsteuer, Solidaritätszuschlag und Kirchensteuer sowie Sozialversicherungsbeiträge."
(see here:https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geringf%C3%BCgige_Besch%C3%A4f...)
In a 450 Euro job, you get 450 Euro.
What do you mean by sector? Germany and Japan (and the US) get along just fine as top-end manufacturers.
Especially in the simpler of proffesions, I fail to grasp the difference to the british system. Surely you need and will receive training of some form as well if you start a job. Do the school hours make the difference here? I am not convinved, given a butcher with already 10 years of school experience will be taught and tested for cheap stuff like percentage calculation. OTH you can become sysadmin apprentice and won't need a uni-degree, which is nice i suppose, as you get certified to know the essentials.
I habe never heared anything good about the "Berufsschule" so I decided to get a degree and work parttime as dev to get good theoretical and practical education here in germany.
First, German workers are forbidden to use social media or check their phones at work. So, instead of checking your text message or facebook, you interact with other workers.
Second, workers are given bonuses based on team output. No competition, rather team must work together to get better bonuses.
Third, German's don't ever drown themselves with a mortgage. They just rent for life, but I hear that housing condition is excellent in Germany.
Fourth, German mother's are incentivized to take care of their children. The heavy taxation discourages moms seeking jobs. This is important for child's development to have a mother around.
Fifth, German kindergarten is more like spending time in nature, getting dirty in the forest, climbing trees and such.
Sixth, students who aren't interested in studying can go to trade schools and take up apprenticeship like the article described.
For the above reasons, Germany seems to work less hours yet have greater output. They are super efficient and practical with their time. The government also places heavy emphasis in making sure the traditional familial obligations are maintained.
What an awesome country.
1) No. That's, as probably in the US, a case-by-case thing. None of my friends that have a degree work under such restrictions.
2) Again, case-by-case. Though I think it might be overall more common.
4) The government is working hard on making that untrue with better and better options for working parents. Plus it's not only mothers but fathers as well.
Social media use is definitely not forbidden at work as a rule. Not sure if there are companies that forbid it, and if that would be legal. But it is certainly not the norm.
Don't know about the bonuses.
Mortgages: many Germany buy houses, but perhaps fewer than in the UK. Renting for life is certainly common.
Childcare: what does "heavy taxation" have to do with it? Taxes are the same for everyone. There is a huge push to get mothers to work earlier by providing more childcare and so on (personally I think it's a stupid idea, but it's the sentiment the common media outlets want us to have).
Kindergarden: nature kindergardens exist, but they are rare. Most kindergardens have their own playground.
Today probably most companies disallow any private web surfing.
Inofficially it is often tolerated if you don't overdo it.
> and if that would be legal.
It is.
> But it is certainly not the norm.
Believe me, it is.
The reason is simple: As soon as you're allowing private surfing you have to respect your employees' privacy. That means that you must not use software or equipment to track web use (apart from special agreements with the works council).
Same goes for private email. If you allow that, you cannot have your admins look into emails anymore. You cannot easily backup mails without telling your employees all the details. You cannot simply reject mails. And so on.
It's a huge hassle.
How well you do after a trade school also depends a lot on the sector you are working it and even on companies. There are companies who love people with degrees from trade schools and others who don't like them.
When you want to look at working hours in comparison to economical output there once has been a study posted here on HN showing that the richer countries (at least in Europe) tend to be those with fewer working hours and in general there seems to be a strong north-south difference, with Italy, Greece, Austria (which is the exception), etc. having many work hours and Scandinavian having fewer.
As for the whole topic: I really don't think that all of this really tells you too much about what a good system for economical output is. A lot of this tells you more about the society in a country and probably its history. Of course it all affects economy, but copying Germany won't magically make you rich, same is true for US, UK, China, ...
Laws and rules in general, as well as the educational systems must fit with other things like society, natural resources, population size and structure, etc.
That's also why you can't just say that a libertarian (economically, not social) society will always have a wealthier society than another. There are many additional factors. China has the benefit of a large population, the US has the benefit of a great size, over many climatic zones and the UK has at the right time set a focus on institutions that act in the financial market. However also those things have to come with a society that is willing to make use of this.
If you think about South America. They still struggle mostly with the problem that they in history ended up on the losing side. If that other side happened to win (could have happened, were they luckier and took different decisions at times of war) then things might have looked different, or not.
I don't want to say these things depend largely on luck, but since there are multiple complex systems interacting with each other saying X is the reason for this and that everyone could have seen this coming seems like the wrong and a strongly irrational approach to me.
There were lots of really tiny events throughout history that strongly affected history and thereby societies, economy, politics, etc. and thereby how well economical models end up working for certain countries.
All of the VW group cars I have had have been great - haven't had a single problem with them.
How? To generalize/stereotype, the routine downfall of German industry has been over-engineering. In other words, it's an amazing product, but good lord it is so complicated, no-one could ever iron out all the bugs.