Germany to Open Doors for Engineers, Doctors

[dtotire]

Germany to Open Doors for Engineers, Doctors
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 22, 2011 at 9:05 AM ET



BERLIN (AP) — Germany hopes to attract doctors and mechanical and electrical engineers from abroad by scrapping restrictions that made it more difficult for them to find work.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government agreed Wednesday to change immigration laws so that German companies can more easily hire engineers and doctors from abroad. Currently foreigners can only land a job if it pays more than euro66,000 ($95,000) annually, or the company can prove there are no qualified German or European Union citizens.

Experts say Germany is not turning out enough graduates and could face a shortage of 6.5 million qualified professionals by 2025.

The proposed changes are part of a package aimed at increasing Germany's skilled labor force. It must still pass parliament.



more:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/06/22/world/europe/AP-EU-Germany-Foreign-Workers.html?_r=1&ref=aponline

[On the Road]

1. My Daughter is in Germany Right Now

doing a government-sponsored internship on Civil Engineering. The purpose is to attract foreign engineers. They are quite serious about this -- have a two-week immersion program in German and everything.

[bongbong]

2. Details?

Do you have the name of the program or anything? I know somebody who might be able to apply.

[On the Road]

4. I Don't Know the Name of the Program

The government's reason for offering it is to attract career engineers to Germany.

She is a junior Civil Engineering major at Cooper Union in NYC, and found out about out about the internship program through the school. There should be administrators at the college whose job it is to know about programs like these. While the program does not pay, housing is cheap, and despite sky-high airfares and the exchange rate, it actually costs less than living in Manhattan.

The main part of the program involves working on a graduate student's project. Her project has something to do with reinforced concrete, and she is in Aachen in the Northwest near Dusseldorf and Koln. She has a classmate in another part of the country.

The first two weeks were spent in Berlin at a language immersion program. (She does not know German but has wanted to learn it for a while.) There are some other program-wide things going on on weekends in Berlin again and Heidelberg, but I don't know exactly what they are. (Skype hasn't worked.)

Am going to visit July 12. Will have more info after than.

[bongbong]

5. Thanks!

Thanks for the info!

[leftistboy]

3. I hope that Germany is still democratic enough to crush this treasonous nonsense

but from what I hear, the german govt is getting more and more out of control.