Why Skilled Migrants Come to Germany for Work and Then Leave Again

I've been here for a decade, and sadly I feel the issue is upward mobility for skilled workers. Unless you're working for an intl company, with ex-pats in positions of leadership, your chances of "getting ahead" are going to be limited, especially when you're competing against natives.

The reason is sadly, the culture is very reserved and cautious, so as an "outsider" it's going to take A LONG time before you can be trusted in a senior/leadership position (no matter how good your German language skills are).

The good part, from my experience the people here are great, friendly, and yeh it takes time to get to know them but it pays off in the long run. But professionally... it's complicated.

So while people come here, work and stay for a few years, they're going to leave when they realise that despite their best efforts, they need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).

And this sadly affects applications for jobs (a photo is pretty much required which would be considered illegal in other countries like the UK), apply for apartments (which country is your last name from... automatic rejection), just to mention a few key cases that really affect immigration.

i've lived+worked in 4 different countries on 3 continents and i think you always have to expect to adjust to the culture, it's not going to change for you, nor should it. But if you want to progress professionally (and Germany NEE […]

I migrated to Germany 10+ years ago and I'm still here. Based on my limited experience, there are two big issues.

First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on. If you're a fresh immigrant who cannot find a job in an economic crisis (aka "most of them") you may very well wonder why staying here alone when you could be just as unemployed near your family.

Second: I won't say that Germany is xenophobic (not even all AfD voters) but I will say it's unfriendly. Work example: I've worked in multiple places in German without language issues, and yet many jobs automatically disqualify me because they ask for "minimum C2", a rank I don't have and one that many native Germans wouldn't achieve either. Add less chances to make a social circle, inflexibility, not great weather, and a government that's constantly calling you lazy and entitled, and that's how you get depressed.

The sad part is, Germany has all the pieces to be a great place to live that, for some reason, has decided to dismantle them all one by one.

Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citizen married to a German man. However, she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one. By contrast, when I became an American citizen, my American friends (white and hispanic) insisted that they attend the naturalization ceremony.

I‘m German, but I no longer live in Germany, so I can’t relate to the experience of immigrating to Germany.

I think a big part of the issue is a certain German presumptuousness.

There’s a general sense that Germany is a prosperous, influential country. The reason for that must be that things are done correctly in Germany.

I think this is an inherited attitude that doesn’t really correspond to reality anymore as systems are crumbling and a trip to many other European countries (including those Germans grew up to view as a barbaric hinterland or as holiday destinations) shows them that even small towns can have fast mobile internet, that you can pay by card at market vendors, and that the government can use computers.

As an outsider, but hailing from Germany's eastern neighbor and one of the largest sources of immigrants:

Overall sentiment is that the juice ain't worth the squeeze any more.

Back when my country became a full member of Schengen(2008) the ratio of GDP per capita between Germany and us was around 3.3x - salaries were roughly proportionally higher, so just about any job was worth moving there and potentially going through the hoops required to establish a permanent residence.

Earlier, especially throughout the 90s that ratio didn't go below 5, so a sizeable number of people attempted to move to Germany by any means possible.

Currently it hovers at around 2.1x and most of the discrepancy in salaries is focused on the trades.

A specialist from Poland typically doesn't have access to higher tier salaries, so they don't really enjoy a different quality of life than at home, so they have no reason to move.

Berlin is one the cheapest capital cities in Europe. As such it attracts a huge amount of immigrants. That low cost is reflected in the pay. An experienced full stack developer would be fortunate to get 90-95k euro annually. That is plenty of money if you intend to stay in Berlin, but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country. Also, housing is a huge problem there and it can take 6 months to find even a basic flat. I am an American developer that lived there for many years and my co-workers were usually Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian, Russian, Lebanese, and now Indian. It was rare to find an actual German coder.

I had a hard time with German work expectations and management style. Also, their engineering approach is thorough but incredibly slow and over-built. The environment is hierarchy and credential based with little room for individual initiative or creative problem solving. I was used to improvising, experimenting, and thinking outside the box. It was not a good fit.

I lived there for around 6 months like 15 years ago so perhaps it's changed a lot since then.

But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.

I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.

It didn't seem like an especially friendly place and there were so many rules about everything too, like just being able to take the rubbish or recycling out you had specific days and times.

I think there is also a chicken-egg problem in almost every country that doesn't use English as official language:

If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study --> to live there you need a job --> back to start

Different counties have different tolerances regarding how quick you pick up the local language. For Germany and France this tolerance is almost 0, for Netherlands it's much higher.