More and More Leave Germany Behind
By Julia Bonstein, Alexander Jung, Sebastian Matthes and Irina Repke
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,446045,00.html
Faced with poor job prospects, high taxes and an intrusive
bureaucracy, more and more Germans are choosing to emigrate. Most of
those who leave, though, are highly qualified -- which could mean
devastating economic consequences.
Frank Pigorsch was unemployed in Germany. Until he found a job in
Calgary that is. He now lives there with his family.
They are fed up, truly fed up. Fed up with the constant bickering over
the costs of wage benefits, social reforms, elimination of subsidies,
store closing hours and all the other symbols of a country stuck in
bureaucratic and legislative gridlock.
They are tired of living in country where landing a job is like
playing the lottery, a country where not even half of citizens live
from gainful employment and a country in which even academics in their
mid-40s are already considered problem cases when it comes to job
placement. In other words, they are fed up with living in a country
where all opportunities already seem to be taken: opportunities to
succeed in one's career, to own property and to achieve prosperity.
That is why they want to leave -- as fast as they can, in fact -- and
move to places where they believe there is hope for a better future.
One of those places is the Third World -- India, to be more precise.
René Seifert, 35, still raves about Bangalore, India's booming
metropolis, where young computer programmers spend their nights
crowding into the city's dance clubs and where, during the days, cars
share the streets with rickshaws and cows. And where, despite the
seeming chaos, every thing has its place. "I'm fascinated by the pulse
of Asia, the upbeat prevailing mood and the wealth of opportunities,"
he raves.
With a few thousand euros in starting capital Seifert, a businessman
and former head of entertainment at Internet portal Lycos Europe,
founded a company in Bangalore that provides accounting services for
mid-sized German companies. He is so enamored of India that he can
hardly imagine ever wanting to return to Munich. "Things are really
starting to move here," he says.
"Why stay in Cottbus?"
Frank Naumann, a 38-year-old doctor, fled to Austria with his wife
because of "miserable working conditions at home." German doctors, he
says, "are in demand from North Cape" -- in northern Norway -- "to the
Emirates, so why should I have stayed in Cottbus?"
Naumann worked at a hospital in the eastern German city of Cottbus for
six years without ever being offered a permanent contract. Because his
chances of being promoted to senior physician were so uncertain,
Naumann and his wife decided to move to the Salzburg region, where he
now has permanent contract as a senior physician at a hospital in the
Austrian town of Schwarzach. Back in Cottbus, doctors are working
multiple shifts because the hospital suffers from a shortage of
qualified personnel.
Almost everyone in Germany these days knows people like Seifert or
Naumann -- people who have decided to make a fresh start in the middle
of their lives. Saying goodbye is difficult for almost anyone, but at
some point the frustrations and the yearning for a new future become
too overwhelming to ignore. Rarely have so many Germans decided to
leave it all behind -- their houses and properties, parents and aunts,
friends and co-workers. According to the German Federal Office of
Statistics, 144,815 Germans left the country last year, a jump of
almost 25 percent over 2002. At the same time, fewer and fewer Germans
are returning from abroad. The most recent figure is 128,052. For the
first time in a generation, more Germans are emigrating than
returning. And these are only the official figures.
"Overseas is calling!" More and more doctors are leaving Germany out
of disgust with the job conditions here. This image is from a doctors
strike this spring.
There are probably just as many who move away without bothering to
notify officials in their local municipalities. And those who go are
no longer only social dropouts, those seeking a tax haven or
celebrities. Nowadays doctors are moving to Norway, engineers to the
United States and agricultural experts to New Zealand. Germany is
becoming a net exporter of people.
The typical emigrant is in his prime, between the ages of 25 and 45,
has had a decent education and is already well into his career. "Those
who go are often highly motivated and well-educated," says Stefanie
Wahl of the Institute of the Economy and Society in Bonn. But
immigrants are a different story altogether. "The people who come here
are usually poor, unskilled and have little education."
A paucity of immigrants
This is precisely the problem. Not only are more people turning their
backs on Germany, but those who go are typically the country's best
and brightest. According to a study by the Organization of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), hardly any other industrialized
nation is losing so many academics to other countries. The percentage
of emigrants with doctorates is 10 times as high as it is in the
general population. And half of emigrants are younger than 35. "This
is a warning sign," Ludwig Georg Braun, the president of the German
Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said recently.
Meanwhile, the number of new immigrants is on the decline, and those
who do choose to make Germany their home are often not exactly the
kinds of workers companies actively seek out. While countries like
Australia and Canada restrict immigration mainly to the kinds of
people they can truly use, all it takes for someone to immigrate into
Germany is proof that they already have family there or are Eastern
Europeans of German descent.
It is failed policy with far-reaching consequences. Hamburg economist
Thomas Straubhaar warns of what he calls a "DDR effect" if the country
loses those who are the most flexible and open to innovation as
happened to former East Germany. "Unless we do something about it," he
says, "this country's problems will become more severe than almost
anyone can imagine today."
The country's pension system is losing contributors just as vast
numbers of baby-boomers are gradually entering retirement. The
demographic crisis is getting worse, especially when one considers
that deaths outnumbered births by 144,000 in 2005, and that this gap
is continuing to widen.
Beyond the social system, the emigration of the country's elites
represents a loss to the German economy as well. The government spends
untold thousands of euros for the education and training of every
biologist, computer scientist or engineer. And then these specialists
become frustrated and leave the country.
Of the just under 12,000 students who enter medical school in Germany
each year, fewer than 7,000 end up working in hospitals or private
practice. Of those who find employment, about half of them find it
outside of Germany, according to the Marburg Bund, the trade
association of German hospital doctors. Training these 3,000 or so
doctors who end up emigrating costs the government about €600 million
-- an expense that ultimately benefits patients in Great Britain,
Norway and Switzerland.
Fifty-seven thousand Germans in Austria
Ultimately, such an export of intellectual wealth weakens Germany as a
site for investment. Many companies already lack specialized workers
today, and 16 percent of German companies are unable to fill all their
positions because of a lack of qualified candidates. There are about
7,000 unfilled engineering jobs in the machine building industry
alone.
"We cannot simply look on as precisely those people emigrate who are
valuable, well educated and motivated," says DaimlerChrysler CEO
Dieter Zetsche, referring to what human resource experts call the
"brain drain." Zetsche believes that the solution lies in the
government changing its approach to immigration policy. "We should
encourage people to immigrate who can help us solve our problems."
What was once an exotic dream has become a realistic option for many
planning their lives. Three million Germans already live abroad today.
Germany, the world champion when it comes to exports, began by moving
its manufacturing facilities overseas, followed by outsourcing its
jobs to lower-wage countries. Now its citizens are following suit.
Some are motivated by a yen for adventure in faraway places. Others
are simply fed up with German idiosyncrasies, such as the propensity
to constantly come up with new rules where none were necessary in the
first place. But the most important motivation is often economic, as
Germans facing a lack of career opportunities at home seek to build
new lives in places where their skills are still in demand. And that
is the case in a surprisingly large number of places in the world.
Australia has launched a campaign to recruit trained professionals
from abroad, from hairdressers to mining engineers. New Zealand is
also actively looking for qualified workers. But most emigrants are
hesitant to move so far away; for them starting anew in a neighboring
country is daring enough.
More than 57,000 Germans now work in Austria. And Switzerland is
becoming increasingly popular: One in 10 emigrants opts for Germany's
southern neighbor, and in 2005 Switzerland was the top destination for
Germans emigrating abroad. Danish job recruiters even make the trip to
job fairs in Germany to recruit sought-after German professionals.
It's a Monday morning at the headquarters of Hamburg's employment
agency. Grith Tschorn of Ramsdal, a Danish human resource company,
sits in front of her country's red-and-white flag. A stack of
employment contracts sits on the table in front of her. Trained
welders, she says, are practically guaranteed a job.
"Hi, I'm Grith," she says, greeting a young man who sits down in front
of her. "Hello, my name is Ramon Berg," he replies, a bit put off by
her overly familiar tone. "What are your skills, Ramon?" she asks
bluntly.
Ramon Berg, 29, from the northern German city of Kiel, has a number of
skills to offer. He is a trained gas installer and plumber, and he
holds a degree in construction engineering. "Really? Construction
engineering?" the Danish woman asks. "I know, it's difficult," he
responds, imagining his opportunities shrinking by the second. "No,
it's incredibly easy," she interrupts, "we are urgently in need of
construction engineers." She tells him that she already has a
potential employer in mind, and that he'll probably be able to start
work in three or four weeks.
That's how quickly lives change.
Germany has lived through, and survived, several waves of emigration
in the past. In the mid-19th century, after a number of major famines,
the temptations of the New World encouraged hundreds of thousands to
make the journey across the Atlantic to America. In the 20th century,
Germans fled from recession and inflation, and later from the horrors
of the Nazi era. Their numbers included some of the country's greatest
intellects, among them physicist Albert Einstein.
Emigration is child's play
Between 1850 and 1939, about 5 million people left Germany through the
port of Hamburg alone. Most of those emigrants came from modest
backgrounds. They were farmers, maids and day laborers, and they were
driven by the hope of a better life somewhere else, or at least a
better life for their children. It was this optimism that gave them
the courage to take such an enormous gamble.
Emigration in today's borderless world is practically child's play by
comparison. Germans seeking a new life in Helsinki, Dublin or Seville
don't even need work permits. It's more akin to moving than
emigrating.
Today, every major city on earth can be reached within 36 hours. A
10-minute telephone call to just about anywhere in the world usually
costs less than a euro, even less using the Internet. Besides,
families are no longer as close-knit as they once were, with each
generation essentially leading its own life. All of these factors make
for a completely new breed of emigrants today.
They include people like media lawyer Rufus Pichler, 35. He lives in
San Francisco, works for Morrison & Foerster, one of the world's
biggest law firms, and he has also taught at elite Stanford
University. This combination would hardly be possible in Germany, says
Pichler. "Once you join a law firm in Germany, you can forget about
academia."
Pichler was once an academic working at the University of Münster in
northern Germany. One day, he says, he became "fed up with
structures." His original plan was to spend a year at Stanford and
then "expand horizons" from there. He specializes in Internet law.
As it turned out, Stanford was exactly the right place. Pichler
quickly made a name for himself, and one day he received the kind of
offer from the San Francisco law firm that most people would find
difficult to turn down.
It's an experience shared by many Germans who have studied abroad.
Since 1990, their numbers have almost doubled, to more than 62,000
today. At first they plan to stay abroad temporarily, but once they
start enjoying life in Boston or Barcelona they often end up staying
-- indefinitely.
The well educated in Germany are fleeing the country in droves.
Not just the highly qualified
According to a recent survey, more than half of German university
students could imagine living and working abroad. Top-notch
researchers are especially fond of the greater freedoms often
available in other countries. Two years ago Wolfgang Schönfeld, 50, a
native of Berlin, decided to launch a biotech company, Eucodis, in
Vienna. He had initially considered opening up shop in Munich, Dresden
or Frankfurt, "but there was always a catch in each of those places."
Schönfeld and his team developed a method of combining genes to
produce new proteins. When he was looking for a location for his new
company, he was put off by the negative mood in Germany. "There is a
lack of drive, and everything moves at a snail's pace," he complains.
Things have improved somewhat, says Schönfeld, but he is still pleased
that he took the step of moving to Austria. A number of biotech firms
have moved their offices to the region, he reports, adding that Vienna
exerts "an incredible draw."
But it is not just the highly qualified who are finding the courage to
try their luck in another country. More and more average citizens --
many of them in financial straits at home -- are finding the courage
to make a fresh start. They iron laundry in hotels in Austria's
Southern Tyrol resort region, wait tables in restaurants in Italy and
cook dumplings in Austria's Stubai Valley. Nothing is beneath them,
and anything is better than collecting unemployment in Germany.
Surprisingly many of these German guest workers are skilled craftsmen
-- carpenters and plumbers, butchers and bakers -- and they enjoy an
excellent reputation abroad. They are well trained and considered
industrious, punctual and experienced.
Frank Pigorsch, 45, from the town Harsefeld near Stade, has been
working in construction for 30 years. When his former employer went
bankrupt Pigorsch, a master bricklayer, lost his livelihood. He sent
out countless job applications, but nothing materialized.
At a job fair he met with recruiters from a Canadian construction
company in the booming western province of Alberta, which has major
oil reserves. Pigorsch received an offer and has been working in
Calgary since March. At one point, he says, he took aside his boss and
asked: "Joe, what's the situation? Can I stay?" He could -- and
Pigorsch brought his family to Canada -- his wife Birgit and their
sons, Aaron and Johannes. "At mid-40, this was my last chance," he
says.
Germany's Green Card failure
Canada uses a point system to control immigration as do Australia and
New Zealand with Great Britain soon to follow. These countries recruit
skilled workers for the long haul. Under the Australian system, an
applicant who is younger than 29 receives the highest number of points
in the "Age" category. It's rough going, on the other hand, for those
over 45.
A 27-year-old master baker with a few years of experience, who is
fluent in English, has already completed a training program in
Melbourne and can bring along a few thousand euros to boot would stand
an excellent chance of being admitted to work in Australia. An
applicant with these qualifications could collect up to 140 points, 20
more than he would need to enter the country. Under the Canadian
system, an applicant needs 67 of 100 possible points to gain entry.
Germany's former Social Democrat and Green Party coalition, under then
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, had planned to introduce a similar system
for regulating immigration, based on a proposal drafted by
conservative politician Rita Süssmuth. The legislation was already
part of the draft document for Germany's new immigration act in 2003.
But in light of growing unemployment and cheap populist propaganda
("Kids instead of Indians"), the conservatives abandoned the idea and
demanded that the point system be removed from the draft legislation.
Today Germany is experiencing a painful shortage of qualified new
workers and rising frustration within its current workforce. The
immigration level has dropped to a 20-year low, and even Germany's
once-celebrated Green Card -- which aimed at attracting IT experts to
the country -- has drawn few foreign workers to the country.
In the past year, only 900 highly qualified workers have applied for
and been issued a residency permit -- which should come as no surprise
given the daunting requirements. Only those who earn more than about
€84,000 a year or hold prominent positions in scientific fields are
permitted to settle permanently in Germany. Entrepreneurs are required
to invest a million euros and create 10 new jobs if they hope to seek
their fortunes in Germany. A young American doctor interested in
moving to Germany wouldn't stand a chance.
"Germany has boxed itself in," says Klaus Bade, a historian and
migration expert from the northern city of Osnabrück. Critical of his
country's isolationist strategy, Bade believes that "this will not
work in the long run without compromising innovative strength."
Germany, with its aging and shrinking population, is in fact dependent
upon qualified immigrants. If only to maintain its current population,
it would need 200,000 to 300,000 foreign immigrants each year. But
last year only 80,000 came into the country.
Another unmistakable trend is that those countries that actively
control immigration are far better off economically. In Canada,
Australia and the United States, the economy is growing at a steady
clip and faster than in Germany, and jobless rates are also
consistently lower in these countries. The widespread fear that
immigrants take away jobs from local inhabitants seems unfounded.
A program initiated by the Central Council of Jews in Germany is also
unlikely to encourage the country's lawmakers to enact modern
immigration law. The organization recently introduced a point system
for Jewish immigration. Under the system, younger Jews with university
degrees and strong German language skills will be given preference for
residency permits. Could this be a model for the national government?
Under no circumstances, say officials at the interior ministry, who
insist that there will be no paradigm shift in Germany's immigration
policy.
Not so perfect as they had imagined
And so instead of intelligently controlling immigration, Germany
continues to erect barriers. Highly skilled foreign workers will
continue to avoid Germany and, conversely, the country's young elites
will venture out into the world.
And yet for many their new lives are not always as rosy as they had
expected. They paint an idealized picture of their new home and are
all-too-often shocked to discover, upon closer inspection, that things
aren't nearly as perfect as they had imagined.
For example, who actually knows that Austria assesses a higher maximum
tax than Germany? Or that workers in Great Britain don't receive
nearly as much of their salary should they fall ill? And who is
familiar with the fine print that requires higher-earning workers to
pay far more into the Swiss social security fund, or that a day-care
spot in Zürich can cost upwards of 100 francs a day? And does anyone
know that employees in Canada are not entitled to their 14 days of
vacation until they have worked for a minimum period of time? For most
German emigrants, the rude awakening doesn't happen until they are
already abroad.
Many emigrants must also admit to themselves that although they are
entering a new chapter in their lives, they themselves have not
changed, nor have all their weaknesses and peculiarities. Finding a
job in New Zealand, for example, is not so easy after all when one
doesn't speak English well. Besides, not everyone can cope with the
laid-back mañana mentality in the more southern latitudes. So many
things are different, even if the differences may only be minor.
For example, Julia Arneth, 33, discovered that train schedules are
unreliable in Great Britain. In February, Hamburg native Arneth moved
to London, where she now works as an architect. "I never had anything
that was really solid in Germany," she says. But now she is truly
appreciative of the advantages of Germany's reasonably reliable public
transportation system.
When she got a toothache after her first few weeks in London but was
unable to get an appointment with a dentist, Arneth realized that
there are some things she does miss. "We are really quite well off in
Germany." Arneth is young and she takes a laid-back approach to
Britain's idiosyncrasies. But the older an emigrant is, the more
difficult a time he will have adjusting to his new environment. That's
one rule of thumb. Another is that the farther away the destination,
the more difficult it is to become acclimated -- until at some point
emigrants begin to feel homesick.
Some want to come back
Germans are increasingly calling hotlines when they discover that
living abroad isn't quite what they expected and desperately want to
return home. A man who recently called a Protestant hotline for German
emigrants in Hamburg said that when his plans to establish a company
abroad failed, he was forced to work on a plantation to scrape
together the money to fly himself and his family back to Germany.
Others toy with the idea of returning out of conviction, not economic
necessity. Academics, in particular, often spend only a limited time
in their self-imposed exiles and, after a few years abroad, return to
Germany to continue their careers. And when they do, they bring along
knowledge and experience. Indeed, the "brain drain" can even be
desirable if, at some point, it works in reverse and former emigrants
return home with their skills and expertise enriched by the experience
abroad.
However, the move back to Germany is often more difficult than
expected. Halvard Bönig, 39, a pediatrician specializing in
hematology, would move back to Germany in a heartbeat. In his job at a
university in Seattle, he investigates more effective methods of bone
marrow transplantation. But it would be a step back for Bönig to
return to Germany, where very few university hospitals offer chairs in
experimental research, and where the few positions that are available
are generally filled internally.
Bönig has been working in Seattle since 2002 and believes that
conditions there are ideal for his field of research. "If someone has
a good idea here, he writes a proposal and stands a good chance of
getting the necessary funding," he says. But, at the bottom of his
heart, Bönig wants to go home. The Americans he has met are too
materialistic for his taste, and he even feels a bit uneasy about the
idea of helping boost America's status in the world of academic
research with his efforts. "I would rather do what I'm doing here back
in Germany."
But employers back in Germany are not exactly knocking at Bönig's
door. The Germans have apparently not yet realized that the entire
world is competing for the best minds, says Thomas Bauer, a labor
economist from the central German city of Essen. Germany, says Bauer,
is by no means especially appealing to potential talent. The tax
burden is too high, earnings are too low and social pressure to keep
up with the better-paid professionals is too high. "This is a real
turn-off, especially for the highly qualified," says Bauer, who
believes that this causes "tremendous damage" to Germany's image as a
place to live and work.
A great deal at stake
There is a great deal at stake. The word gets around quickly at home
when qualified people emigrate to other countries and are successful
there. This encourages others to emulate them. Motivated by the
success of the pioneers, they too decide to take the plunge, pack
their bags and find the one country on earth where their dreams can
become reality. Ultimately, what begins as a trickle becomes a wave.
Klaus Dittmers, 34, a geologist from the northern city of Bremerhaven,
reports that he was greeted with open arms in Oslo when he began
working for a supplier to the oil industry in the Norwegian capital in
April. "The Norwegians say to themselves: 'We need these people.'"
Dittmers was living off of unemployment benefits until April, when he
decided that he could no longer stomach being idle. The oil
exploration industry is booming in Norway, and geologists are in
demand. Dittmers made the decision that is now changing his life.
He says that he can easily imagine staying in Norway. Dittmers is
learning the language in a course paid for by the government. He is
even considering buying a house somewhere between the country's fjords
and mountains. "I like the country more and more every day."
Another German lost.
--
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
.
|
