I hear the dogs bark, and there go the caravans of post-modern Gastarbeiter to Germany. Young, talented and skilled jobless from Greece and Spain, Portugal and Italy. Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to hold jobless young people to Germany so they can escape the misery of unemployment in their countries due to recession, debts and austerity. Clever but also sneaky… Then while everybody has been accusing Germany to want to damp wages in the debt-ridden countries of the European South for the purpose of cheap labout forces and big profit for German investments, it turns otherwise: Cheap labour forces should go and work to Germany damping the wages also for the German workers.
“Germany’s Federal Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to help Europe’s problem countries – and thus solve at a stroke a problem in the German labor market: “For years, we have more apprenticeships than applicants,” said the German Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen in an interview to Deutsche Welle over the weekend. Meanwhile, even applicants with lower grades had much better chance than before. “In Germany alone there are reportedly more than one million job vacancies and the demand for skilled workers will increase as the shrinking population will continue.”
In Germany and Austria, the youth unemployment rate was -in contrast to Greece or Spain-, with eight per cent at “historic lows”. “In contrast, every one out of two people under 25 in Spain or Greece awaits for a chance to get a foots int to the work market, despite university diploma.” The young people in Europe currently feel they live in two different worlds. “It looks equally bleak in Portugal and Italy, where approximately every one out of three is wihtout a job after finishes school or university.”
Therefore, according to Ursula von der Leyen, they would support initiatives through the German Labour Ministry, to get in Germany “talented young people from neighboring countries with high unemployment” Both the German companies and the young people would benefit from it. Especially the young people when they return to their homeland one day, “they will be the best ambassadors for Germany in Europe”.
German companies should register the open job vacancies at the Central Employment Agency. “Together with colleagues from the various EU countries they could do some targeted search for suitable candidates in Barcelona or Piraeus.”(via Deutsche Mittelstands-Nachrichten)
A noble thought, if only one wouldn’t ask: Where are the German young, talented, specialists and skilled workforces? Apparently abroad for better salaries.
Jobless Greeks or Spaniards would be a blackmail card in the hands of German companies to further damp wages.
Is von der Leyen’s plan Fishing or Phising?
PS these cheap labour forces will also have to pay rent and spend all their earned money in Germany as well and boost German economy…. Satanic!
“PS these cheap labour forces will also have to pay rent and spend all their earned money in Germany as well and boost German economy…. Satanic!”
Satanic, yes. The diaspora-greeks are one of the top income source in greece. Von der Leyen wants to enslave the best heads of greece for 1€ per hour. Sorry, a rediculous article.
That’s pretty much how the European Union is supposed to work. Free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. If you don’t like the idea, you never should have joined.
a) I was and still am an EU supporter -however not of thse not equality conditions
b) I was never asked whether to join or not
c) Leyen’s proposal smells like Gy’s supremacy effort to take advantage of conditions it helped be created.
d) I don’t blame solely Germany for Greece situation, however Gy should not play the innocent lamb. When SIEMENS, Ferrostaal/submarines were giving out bribes to Greeks so to secure state contracts, then Germany had nothing to say about corruption, then it made profit out of it.
The answer to your question “Where are the German young, talented, specialists and skilled workforces?” is actually in the first paragraph of your quoted article: “shrinking population”. Indeed, Germany has had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, meaning that it does not produce enough young Germans to fill its job vacancies. Furthermore, its young female workers (skilled or not) are openly discouraged to work if they choose to have children, thereby reducing even more the number of potential German workers.
It’s a good thing for everyone involved – why complain? The unemployed get work and companies get workers. Perfect!
Then of course in the longer run it would be good for Greece if the best people stay at home to develop the country, but for now with no jobs on the horizon, it surely must be better that people have jobs.