About those cheering Germans welcoming refugees

[ellenrr]

more to it than meets the eye:

Europe’s foremost economy needs capable hands and brains. The unemployment rate is just 6.4%, and the population is ageing, overall. The country will need an immigration top-up for several years to come. Employers are even lobbying to get the newcomers streamlined access to the labour market.

Births are being outnumbered by deaths by around 200,000 per year [670,000 and 870,000, respectively]. The fertility rate is one of Europe’s lowest, at 1.36 per woman. Just 22% of the population is under age 25, while over-65s are at 20% and projected to represent one third of all Germans by 2060.

Germany is short of about 140,000 engineers, programmers and technicians, according to the employers’ federation. And if nothing is done to make up that shortage the projection is the country will be in the hole by 1.8 million qualified workers within five years and more than double that by 2040.

Skilled trades and service sectors such as tourism and health are also eyeing the resource pool. Some 40,000 traineeships this year are missing takers. Local initiatives are gearing up to hire foreigners.

http://www.euronews.com/2015/09/07/germany-s-winning-refugee-welcome-formula/

[JNelson6563]

1. Sounds like a win/win!

I love happy endings.

Julie

[ellenrr]

2. A "win" would be to stop the conflict (which the US is implicated in fomenting) so

people don't have to leave their homes.

A bigger win would be to do away with borders.

An even bigger win would be to stop climate change which will result in millions of refugees.

[CJCRANE]

4. We need nation states with borders for democracy.

Removing borders willy-nilly just leads to anarcho-corporatism with no democratic control.

[ellenrr]

11. anarcho-corporatism?!

clearly you do not understand anarchism which means democratic governance by the people.
It means non-hierarchical relationships.
Non-dominational.
In other words, it is the very antithesis of corporatism.

[CJCRANE]

14. "Anarcho-capitalism":

Anarcho-capitalism (anarcho referring to the lack of a state, and capitalism referring to the corresponding liberation of capital and markets, also known as free-market anarchism,[2] market anarchism,[3] private-property anarchism,[4] libertarian anarchism,[5] among others (see below), and the short term "ancap&quot is a political philosophy that advocates the elimination of political government - which distorts market signals, breeds corruption, and institutionalizes monopoly - in favor of individual sovereignty, absence of invasive private property policies and open markets (laissez-faire capitalism). Anarcho-capitalists believe that in the absence of statute (law by decree or legislation), society would improve itself through the discipline of the free market (or what its proponents describe as a "voluntary society&quot .[6][7] In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather than centrally through compulsory taxation. Money, along with all other goods and services, would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. Therefore, personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would be regulated by victim-based dispute resolution organizations under compensatory tort and contract law, rather than by statute through centrally determined punishment under political monopolies.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

[ellenrr]

15. well..there you go.. wikipedia is my authority on everything. ;) nt

[LeftishBrit]

7. Doing away with borders isn't going to happen; the other two are vital, but meanwhile there are

people who need to be rescued now.

[JNelson6563]

18. Shit, I forgot where I was for a minute!

I forgot, here on DU on the most perfectly idyllic situation can even bec considered a "win".

Oy. No wonder so many have left this sandbox, it's become a litter box.

Julie

[ellenrr]

19. Where you are is a place

where some people engage in critical thinking, not sound bites.

[Sanity Claws]

3. Unemployment is just 6.4%?

6.4% is not that low.
I don't the people were cheering for the reasons this article states. Some businesses may cheer but not your average person, IMHO.

[DFW]

8. Compared to some of its neighbors, it's low

France is usually in solid double digits, as are Spain and Italy. For Europe, 6.4% is low.

[Sanity Claws]

10. I know that

but it still doesn't take away from the fact that there are more Germans than jobs. The article's explanation for why Germans are cheering doesn't make sense.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. And I am wondering how many of those refugees are the

" engineers, programmers and technicians," that Germany is short of.

[DFW]

17. There will always be a gap

Not everybody is qualified for every job opening out there. If there are openings for pharmaceutical research biochemists and none for teachers, but more people trained to be teachers than trained to be pharmaceutical research biochemists, unless all those excess teachers can help develop a better statin or Ebola vaccine, there will be unemployment. That is just an "e.g."

This is why statistically, 5% unemployment is considered to be full employment. In the former Communist countries like East Germany, they perpetuated the myth of a socialist paradise where no one was unemployed, and, indeed, it was illegal to be unemployed (their legal designation for unemployment was "parasitism," for which they used to jail dissidents they fired from their jobs and forbade from getting new ones). It is Utopian to think that any country will train exactly the number of skilled workers able to fill every single job opening in every field. The number of people in any given country who qualify as civil engineers who are also brain surgeons, certified history professors, marine biologists and can fly a 747 is bound to be relatively low.

If Germany is lacking in people possessing skills for which there are more positions open than Germans that can fill them, THOSE people, if they speak fluent German (or, at least English), are always welcome. It's when people show up that have no skilled training, no language skills, no work ethic and nothing but street survival skills and/or paramilitary training that the welcome will dissipate. It's not the initial success stories of the skilled, educated migrants that will determine the success of the Germans' decision, but the success (or failure) in integrating the last 775,000 of them that will determine how the country as a whole will view their government's decision to take them.

[ellenrr]

12. I think the govt is letting the refugees in because they have labor needs.

Not necessarily why the people are cheering.
I certainly am glad the refugees are getting a good reception. They deserve it.
I also think there is more to the govt policy than "compassion" as many people are saying.
Angela Merkel who gave the royal screw to Greece did not suddenly wake up and become a different person.

[CJCRANE]

5. It's a recipe for a reboot of the 1930s rise of Fascism. nt

[pnwmom]

6. I'm skeptical. That unemployment rate isn't so low, and employers in the US

often tout fake labor shortages here too for tech jobs, when they rarely have real shortages. They just want to lower the pay scale.

These figures come from the employers federation. I'd like to know what union leaders say about these supposed labor shortages.

[DFW]

9. Special situation

In most German companies, there is worker representation at the top, and unions have way more power than they do in the USA these days. I'd believe stats from Germany before those we put out here.

[ellenrr]

13. that's a good point about the unions.

If I find anything i'll post.