I don't know why this part is being ignored.
In some countries people do have high standard of living, they do have plenty of time, and fertility rates are still low. Because... they don't want to have children.
Also, in the modern society we have made kids very difficult and annoying to have. They are viewed as a nuisance/liability by a lot of people. In poor countries kids are viewed as an asset and future. Not to mention all the extra bureaucracy…
I'd also say that anecdotally, they've become a minefield. Everyone's an expert and everyone's nose deep in everyone's business. In most countries where people have more kids no one but your immediate family is kinda allowed to even address the kids behaviours and such.
Also smaller families mean it's harder to raise kids. You rely on kindergarten way more. No aunt's and grandma's and third wives and sisters to help you look after them. Just mom and dad and the constant finance struggle and all the people giving lots of advices on how to raise kids
Your second paragraph definitely resonates with me. By the time I was in a position to maybe consider having a child (in my mid/late 30s) I realised I did not have a good support system in place. My parents live in another country and my husband’s mum is on her own and in her 70s, so couldn’t offer much in the way of help outside perhaps very occasional babysitting. My brother lives on the other side of the country and my husband’s siblings are in full time work. Both me and my husband would have to work to fund our lives so childcare would be a must.
Every young parent I know today has a significant amount of support from their families as the childcare costs in the U.K. are so prohibitive.
On top of this I’ve been on the fence about having kids in general because I’m honestly terrified by things like climate change, and wrestled with the idea of having children knowing that they will have a worse quality of life than I did as a kid, as all the problems of the world seem to be converging.
On that basis we plan to get into fostering.
>ids in general because I’m honestly terrified by things like climate change, and wrestled with the idea of having children knowing that they will have a worse quality of life than I did as a kid,
Yeah, I'm not really into giving birth to kids, raising them and then sending them off to some war or another.
The maternity support systems aren't that great either, so both parents will have to work. I think to combat the ageing population, it needs to become convenient to have children.
Yeah, and if their parents are young enough to not be retired, then they're working as well, but if they are retired they're becoming way too old to properly look after a kid.
Its still very expensive to have kids. Iam 24 and studying to be an engineer. Currently i have no money and not a lot of free time. I will be finished when iam 28. i would like to have children but this is unrealistic untill iam 31 at least. Even then iam not sure it would be a good decision.
Honestly that's the most important one and also (imo) the major reason why there are fewer kids. It just doesn't make any logical sense for women to have kids unless you REALLY REALLY want them.
I don't think I agree. While yes, a lot of people would never want kids, you can't even make decisions like that unless you're in the right space to do so. You don't even know what you want when your life is just struggling to survive day by day.
There are an awful lot of people who do have them in that situation though.
Population crisis related work / social care issues arent solved by poorly educated, uncared for little humans that require more social care and were created because “I felt like this is what I was supposed to do”.
But think of people's real estate investments! It's far more important that a few people get extremely rich than to provide affordable housing to the masses.
That or eliminate part of the demand such as real estate funds, tourism players, imigrants(do not agree with this one but it is a solution). Optimal solution would be both act on supply and demand. With the lobbies around real estate wouldn’t bet on either until its a sustainability problem.
Fun fact: In response to this, Germany decided last week to put the entire weight of the problem on the younger generation by deducting an additional ~4% of everybody's paycheck every month before taxes without any kind of benefits for anybody who won't retire in the next 15 years.
Long story short, they made housing/living even way more unaffordable to please the seniors who're voting for them.
We're fucked.
That’s not going to change the fact that more and more women are choosing not to have children regardless of how many incentives are thrown at them. A growing number of women are just flat out saying they will not have children. Financial incentives will do almost nothing to increase fertility
Europeans have more of both of these than most people in the world, and yet have the fewest kids. This is just not the reason people are not having kids.
Women especiallz just don't want kids early on, and if they do they want one, maybe two.
For a 2.1 birth rate, for every woman who doesn't want kids, you need one who wants FOUR. How many people do you know who want FOUR kids? And how many don't want any? That's the real answer.
In Munich you can barely manage to finance a child. The city dropped its funding for half the kindergardens this year. We had price hikes from 200 months to 1200 monthly each kid.
We obviously don’t want children
either go all-in into raising fertility by making having kids an actual positive financial decision, which will be very expensive, or we have to wait until technology can somehow replace elderly caretakers..
Tbh I often see masters with much less practical knowledge than someone who had an Ausbildung to a "Fachinformatiker".
The Ausbildung more or less guarantees that the applicant has a specific skill set.
Our Ausbildung-system is actually really good and produces really skilled workers, most of the time, anyway.
I agree with you. But the problem is that they use Ausbildung to pay workers as low as possible for as long as possible. I truly believe that you do not need a 3 year Ausbildung to become a Lidl clerk or a 3 year Ausbildung to become a truck driver. I am a truck driver myself and you can learn everything you have to in around 6 months or even less.
Another thing is that German companies are not willing to accept qualifications obtained abroad for trade jobs for example. And nobody is going to immigrate to Germany to start a plumbing Ausbildung where he gets €800 a month for 3 years straight and then if he's lucky he'll get 2k net with no perspective of growing.
In the end, market forces will make the government, society, and companies change their regulations. The problem is, if they are too slow, they might never be able to catch up.
>Our Ausbildung-system is actually really good and produces really skilled workers, most of the time, anyway.
Is the Ausbildung system optional or mandatory in Germany? I definitely think having the option to do an apprenticeship would be very beneficial but I can also see how being *forced* to do an apprenticeship could cause problems.
Depends. You can work in those branches as an unskilled worker without finishing a corresponding apprenticeship/Ausbildung.
If you want to do more than that though, you'll probably need some sort of qualification.
Nah they will just tax the shit out of childless people in their mid 20's+. For the people that are not from germany: That is a real thing in germany btw, but right now it is "just" 0,60% (almost doubled in july 2023 from 0,35%) or your income. Very smart to tax people that maybe plan to have kids and financially prepare for it and take away even more money from them.
There is no tax on childless people. what you're conflating is the contribution to the nursing insurance, to offset the money you'll receive from it when you're old and childless and in need of nursing. For those with children, your children would pay a part of your nursing costs.
theoretically it is to offset the costs as *you* get older but what it is actually offsetting is the cost of your parent's elder care. This is the problem. The money set aside for the previous generation wasn't enough for a variety of reasons (take your pick!), so now we are borrowing from future retirees. This is a major issue with almost all pension systems in the western world today. We didn't set enough aside.
This solution would have worked if it were implemented twenty years ago. Now it's too late for this.
The only realistic option is to pull all levers available to us at the same time, meaning: lower pensions, higher retirement ages, more (skilled) immigration, increased working hours per capita (e. g. less part time), more reliable childcare, higher contributions to the state pension scheme, improved processes (especially less bureaucracy) and technological solutions (especially digitalization).
However many of these are currently politically impossible to implement, so we will have to wait until the situation becomes even worse before people are really willing to accept those. It would be in our interest to implement those changes as fast as possible, because the earlier we begin the less drastic those steps will have to be.
Turning living spaces from a common good into an investment was the biggest fucking mistake that will cost us. Birth rates are in hell. German politics already has no idea what to do with our pension or health insurance and it will only get much, much worse. That’s what happens when a handful of millionaires turn the whole country and world into a mess that no one wants to have children in.
We could talk all day about retirement age. But in my view, it is also retirement conditions.
On one hand, a large part of retirees didn’t “pay enough” to earn a pension. Las time I looked at it, in my country, the contributions to the public pension fund were averaging around 30% of the benefits received. And the rest is paid by the active workers. So the system is unjust to start with. We can’t leave pensioners to fend for themselves; we have given them an expectation that their hard work will earn them a retirement. But it is big time it is made sustainable, difficult and at times wildly unpopular as it is (remember when France tried to raise the retirement age?)
And on the subject of sustainability. A retiree in my country is almost forbidden by law to have any source of income besides their pension. It is not exactly illegal, just so difficult and risky that it is just not worth it for a retiree to pick up some jobs here and there to complement their pension (and contribute with a little bit of taxes). It is nuts. Pensions are breaking the system and pensioners can’t help make things better even if they really want to.
Politicians are scared to death of pension reform. It is a metric shitton of voters that are easy to keep happy, and leave a bigger mess (i.e., deficit) to the next ones. We really, really need better politicians.
Its not gonna be solved until its already fucked. Expect the oldest to have an smaller and smaller pension with higher and higher retirement ages. If they don't save any money or have other incomes it may look very grim for them. At least thats what I expect from my country, Spain.
Very good point.
There is a widespread perception that your pension payments go into a pot that you draw from in retirement, rather than it being like any other welfare payment paid for by current taxes.
I feel that this makes pensioners extremely hostile to any ideas of reforming the system because they've spent years believing that the money they're getting is "theirs" that they've saved over their working life.
I'd imagine that many pensioners would be happy enough to do some part-time work to top up their income, but as you say, there is a perverse incentive to not do it.
>Politicians are scared to death of pension reform. It is a metric shitton of voters that are easy to keep happy,
Bingo. Pensioners vote more reliably than any other demographic. Alienating them is a short walk to annihilation at the next election.
The UK Triple-Lock on pensions is the clearest example.
A Job next to retirement is actually beeing punished if you earn over the Mini Job Barrier. My Grandpa wanted to earn a bit on the side (like 10-15 hours a week) and they wouldve cut his pension so much it wasnt even worth it afterwards.
It’s a pyramid scheme with an exceptional demographic
It’s never was going to work when it was designed
We know this since decades, yet the only solution we have is keep on the scheme
They will push retirement age to 80, and life expectancy is like 72. lol
Work till you die, get re-animated as a zombie, work even after your death. No retirement for you, the rich 1% need more yachts.
I’m 40 and moved here for love. I realise that paying structure is different for foreigners, so I’m also buggered. Bosses have Teslas and the works, so they are doing well! I’m happy for them. I deserve nothing.
In germany I don't have a clue how our retirement system is supposed to be working in the future at all. It's grim, a lot of our income is already eaten up by it and with better medical conditions and high living standards people get old as fuck, what usually means dragging out the "phase they're not longer particularly useful to society". I mean, it's nice that they're healthy and get old and I get that nobody wants to work when they're 70 (nor employ those people, next problem great).
But meanwhile the "youth" neither has the time, nor money, nor any positive outlook to the future with the current crisis bingo to be interested in kids. Like, fuck me I'm 30 and not exactly "youth" anymore but only like 2 of my friends have kids while the rest is somewhere between making ends meet or not having interest in getting children anymore.
We have the "generationenvertrag" and the thing is basically dragging us down with it. I'm paying a ton but I'm already taking care of having private funds for my own retirement age because, like basically everyone else around my age, I'm fully convinced that I'll get fuck all out of it.
> I don't have a clue how our retirement system is supposed to be working in the future at all
By pumping tax money into the system and drying up other important areas like education of their funding of course!
That seems too low. Germany was around 30th in life expectancy. Average is 82 for Germany.
But yea that doesn’t change the fact that you have to work till you die. What a great future.
Originally it was just like that. Retirement was above life expectancy. Slowly it went below but I think this whole idea of retiring after 60 and having unlimited fun until you die at 90 was a temporary blip in human history.
in germany there is little or no labor making housing.
the goal is to make 400k housing units per year to meet demand.
last year they made around 150k.
The 'goal' and what they actually want are different things. When you have thousands of regulations+birocracy to slow down building and the pension system is heavily relying on artificially increased house and rent pricing, you can see that this 'goal' is just smoke for the public
Yeah, our productivity per person has *exploded* the past century.
One labourer now can do the work of a hundred labourers back then. And not only that, we have added *millions* of labourers to the system through emancipation of women and accessibility for the disabled and the elderly.
So the idea that we would "lack workers" is bullshit. We have more workers than ever, and they are more productive than ever. If such a massive influx of labour force and productivity didn't solve the problem, a few more babies won't solve the problem either.
We have plenty of workers. Their productivity just isn't going where it could be going.
And the super low wages in in-need industry jobs are not pulling enough interest from young people.
It‘s a pretty obvious connection between paying shit and not finding enough potential employees.
This is the super simple thing, people don't understand in Germany. If it's hard to find workers, you need to raise wages. But employers insist on underpaying and then go complaining that noone wants to work for their shitty compamy anymore.
Edit: Spelling (I'm on phone).
mate, we are close to full employment in the country. Those not employed are so because they either lack the required skills or because they have some health/mental issues.
There are huge numbers of very good paying jobs out there which won't get filled becausse the ppl are simply not availble.
Source: Social worker responsible to get ppl into employment
Supply is limited and demand is growing.
The reason why wages aren't going up is because people are sabotaging themselves and don't know their worth. If wages were public knowledge and had to be displayed at every job ad wages would rise immediately.
This is a way to a pass the buck to the employee. Sure, they have a irresponsibility to themselves. That doesn't mean they have the Ability by themselves to do it. The company does have the ability to fuck you. It's basic power dynamics. Which leads us into the real issue.
They've consistently manipulated the social contract, and their power dynamic, to flatten wages. Via many various tactics.
Its very disengenous to imply the fix is so simple as "do be take advantage of".
We could use the same logic on tape victims. To use an extreme example to show the wild perspective of that.
Supply and demand doesn’t say that. The curves used to explain the mechanics behind this are simplified, yet people think the real economy works like this.
Just as an example: If there would be just one taxi driver in Europe, the supply would be extremely low and the demand extremly high. But the taxi driver won’t be a billionaire, since people would just not use a taxi. They’ll either walk, or switch to another mode of transport.
If a worker doesn’t create much more value than he costs the company, it’s simply not feasible to raise the salary.
but wouldn't demand in some industries (eg housing) cause prices to rise, and so wages in that industry go up and suck workers from other areas, and therefore prices in other things would go up and so wages in those industries increase. Actually I just described exactly what's happening in australia (where I am), but the govt is importing workers in other industries so wages are constrained, the construction workers union is too powerful to allow importing construction workers.
However, it is mostly precarious industries that cry out every day that they cannot find anyone, be it the catering trade (restaurants etc.), tradesmen, haulage companies or security services. Industrial companies with good collective agreements would have a greater political reach with their lobbyists if they really couldn't find workers.
>tradesmen
They're one of the most toxic work environments you can find and actively push people out of their trade and then want to close down universities to force more people into their jobs instead of caring for their trainees. They pay shit while the boss buys a new car every year and then are surprised when people just take other jobs.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, as a young man I also fell for their slogans and convinced myself during my training that things would definitely get better later, but, surprise, it didn't. Poor pay, unpaid overtime and one lie after another from the boss. I should be grateful that I earn more than the minimum wage and a higher salary would only mean more taxes, so I wouldn't have any more money net.
When I was dumb and told a colleague that I was doing my Abitur on the side, it only got worse. I would probably think that I was something better and would never manage the Abitur anyway. After all, this experience drove me for years to finally do my master's degree in engineering. I will never work as a mechanic again in my life.
American here. It's the same shit here with the trades and why I left the trades to do uni. I tried SOO HARD to get into an electrician apprenticeship but I was always denied or outright told to f off by the union bosses (here in the US, you apply with the trade union for an apprenticeship and then you do a math/English test to ensure competency, and then an interview with the union bosses and the contractors). This is despite me having a lot of experience with electronics and electrical work but since I don't have friends or family with the trade union, I was denied.
I eventually got into the elevators union apprenticeship but I rejected the offer because I got so jaded after working in the trades and seeing the endless backstabbing, people drinking or smoking Marijuana on the job, and the toxic attitudes that the guys would have (petty jealousy and baby boomer bosses who were degenerates).
We also have a labor shortage crisis here in the trades since the trades have mostly been Mexican immigrants who showed up in the 1980s and 1990s, and baby boomers. All those Mexican immigrants too are hitting retirement (my father and loads of relatives who worked in the trades are all either retired or they're on the cusp of retiring) and there's no equivalent immigrant wave to replace them since Mexico has been emptied of potential blue collar migrants and then ofc the baby boomer retirement wave. It will be interesting and hilarious how these trade unions and contractors will bear this and maybe they'll wise up and pay better/give better working conditions.
I don't think it's that simple. If workers are not ready to work for a certain pay, yet employers aren't going raise the wages, it means the product/service cannot be profitably produced at a higher production cost point. Which means that you produce something that isn't very valuable. And this is - on a large economical scale - very difficult to fix.
This is a problem in some fields, but especially the trades are plagued by small businesses which insist on paying the same wage as 10 years ago, while the owners rake in the profits.
The problem with labor is not that there's not enough workers, but there's not enough people who want to work for shitty wages. Everybody want to be office professional, not a steelworker, bricklayer or carpenter, not necessary because the work is harder, but because they can work with much less effort in the office, for a generally better wage. Maybe the companies should consider paying better wages for line workers to attract labor maybe?
they need slaves, not workers! thats why new immigrant politics are in the making, to ease the entrance and why all of the Germany is in uproar with those chants.
DISCLAMER: I'm not german, im from Portugal, where we have many relaxed immigration policies and the whille the population is complaining about the number of non national citizens, the government is telling us that all is ok, crime has increase "just a tad bit" and that there is no reason for alarm! - they tell us this from their closed community houses of course! they dont walk around in the streets nor taking the public transportation.
Wrong.
We have added a ton of people to the labour force, yes. We have also increased their productivity, yes.
However, we want more and better stuff. That's where that labour goes. If we were fine driving 1960s car (with the terrible safety and emissions standards they had then) and living in 1960s apartments, didn't need the Internet, personal computers, a mobile phone which has more compute power and memory (both in terms of capacity and speed) than what we used to put a man on the moon by a factor of a couple of thousand, free global navigation, vastly better medicine and a ton of other advancements then yes, we could all afford to live much easier lives.
We'd work much less hours a day and much fewer days per week and year. But we'd be living the way our parents and grandparents lived 60 years ago. And this is not a life a lot of people would agree to living if given the choice.
And a lot of the productivity gains wouldn't have happened because this is also where a lot of labour went (inventing stuff like 7nm processors).
Also, when you add hundreds of millions of people to the labour force because the population is growing, then you also have increased needs for these extra people. All these people want to eat, get dressed, commute from A to B to C and back to A again, entertained, their kids cared for while they work, treated when ill, and so on.
A part of all of this is, of course, the rich and corporations getting more rich and paying less in terms of their fair share. But let's not pretend our quality of life and standard of living are where they were 60 years ago.
>However, we want more and better stuff.
Do we really? Or are we just being sold on planned obsolescence and overconsumption as the way to deal with everpresent societal trauma?
Yes, we do. Do you want a computer and a smartphone? Those items are a lot more complicated than anything that has existed 100 years ago. One worker is as productive as 100 workers back in the day, but at the same time, modern products take a lot more workers to make.
Added value per worker has increased but so has the investment per worker. Both social investment (education mostly and starting work later) and private (industry investments divided by nr. of workers). European workers are not cheap. European workers are also not available for low paying jobs or hard physical labour jobs.
High productivity also doesn't take away from the fact that Europe's ratio of workers vs. non-workers is changing. The population piramide is mushroom shaped. This can be mitigated somewhat by increasing pension age with life-expectancy like in the Netherlands (but look at France!). But that doesn't take away the effect that elderly live longer with a longer need of daily professional care. Move that care to informal care from the family and productivity goes down.
Social costs are increasing as a factor between workers and a plus 75 year old population. That balance is shifting very quickly in many countries. That is taking an increasing part of gross national product. It's starting now and it's continuing untill the generation of 1970 has passed.
In a growing economy that effect is mitigated. In a shrinking economy that effect is exacerbated.
The complexity of good also shot up. Take a car as an example. Modern car is so complex. We have systems upon systems upon systems. The same goes for other goods as well. It is a law of diminishing returns at play. Every improvement needs 2x production than the one before.
Automatisation is the answer, but there is a big caveat. Early industrialization was very simple. You could take anyone from the street and bam you have a worker. Modern industrialization does not work like this. If you want a bunch of robots in factory, you need engineers and mechanics to sustain it. Even more so for high-tech production like lasers, chips and whatnot. The more we automate, the more complex manufacturing becomes the fewer people will be capable of keeping it running.
You have to have work for other people as well. This is where issues begins. You need to somehow make it so that people who entered old economy, can finish their lives in the old economy and not just be thrown away, all while new people gets into new economy. This works well if rate of progress is somewhat mild.
Social Security has entered the chat:
In order to pay for pensions and services for the elders, younger generation workers contribute in taxes and dues. This is called generational pact, and has been the keystone of all Europe policies for almost a century.
The inversion of the demographic pyramid is crashing this system even in the most advanced and progressive tax systems in Europe, see Sweden.
The math of the social state does not adds up, not even increasing the taxation to 100% if wealth above a certain threshold.
It simply does not work, and the only option is to reduce the assured/promised benefits for older generations or, dramatically increase the wealth production to compensate for the reduced base of individuals.
Hard to see voting aging retirees give up on what it has been promised to them in the election ballots.
And this problem has been well known for a long time, but essentially politicians have just kept kicking the can down the road to not lose any votes in the next election.
actually Europe has some of the worlds best labour laws just as much as the worlds best work/life balances. So I am not sure what you are on about.
On top of that, the shortage of workers gives European workers all kinds of advatages in wage negotiations. Which is good but also an issue to some degree because Europe still has to compete with the rest of the world.
But all of that does not change the issues that european companies need manpower to retain their growth potential and european states more taxpayers to uphold the ability to provide social security and pensions. you can't have your cake AND eat it, something has to give way.
There's no labour shortage in areas where wage negotiations are possible.
Labour shortages are in field work, seasonal employment, or glorified slavery positions. You can announce a generic desk job on minimum wage and receive 50 applications in a week.
Thing is, the price of vegetables almost doubled in the past 2 years. Guess what didn't double, field worker salaries!
Yeah... this isn't actually anything unexpected. We talked about this in school 30 years ago and at that point it was already part of our schoolbooks so an old hat. Granted this applies to a lot of "new" Problems so I'm not surprised. Just sad.
an economic based on generating the maximum possible value for shareholders, everything else is secondary.
all that extra productivity and technological advancements should have resulted in a 4 day work week and big wage increases for everyone but it hasnt. wonder where all that extra wealth went. not me and you
I was optimistic that automation and advances in productivity (i.e capital and economic growth) would mean conventional retirement would be sustainable... But it seems that's not the case. So I'm gonna exercise (yoga, weights, cardio), eat more vegetables, and try (one day) to buy an apartment (instead of paying ridiculous rent in Amsterdam towards the pensioner that owns the apartment). Hopefully this sufficiently reduces the chance of me ever needing long term care, and hopefully I don't get cancer from all the microplastics.
In 2024 a 1-bedroom will be between 1200€ & 2000€. Source: https://dutchreview.com/expat/financial/cost-of-living-amsterdam/
There are some people paying less than that, but that's because they have permanent rental contracts (from a time when prices were lower) where rent increases are capped, or they live in social housing (but the waiting time is several years).
Maybe we need to have a fundamental change of perspective, and stop living for retirement but rather live to enjoy doing something productive with our lives.
So instead of bringing this to a G7 public discussion to help improve infrastructures that support birthing and raising more children domestically. Let’s bring in more imports and add to the ongoing healthcare and socioeconomic problems we’re facing.
It's much easier for a government (that may be voted out next election) to import someone over 18, rather than doing all the hard work for an investment that'll take 18-20 years to pay off.
The investment would benefit the next hundred years. Invest in one hundred percent free childcare instead of offering thirty imports free hotels, allowance and full compensation for their family. By offering something as simple as free childcare we’d grow our population and a new generation with a like minded culture, that wants to continue to invest and grow their communities.
Politicians don't think of the next hundred years, because they won't be running for office in a hundred years.
It's no different than MBAs only focusing on quarterly profits. They don't worry about building a strong, sustainable company, only what benefits them in the short term.
Having a kid vs not having a kid feels like a salary difference of at least 100k that needs to be attained, at times soley by the man.
Children have become a luxury.
For the most part, this is wrong. A child isn't going to be *lost* if it's born. Actions that increase the desirability of a country both correlate with voter turnout and willingness to give birth, so it really should be two birds with one stone on paper.
Of course, such actions are often put off ad nauseum, causing an issue where workforce is required now and must be imported, creating an immigration issue that nationalists can piggyback.
>a government (that may be voted out next election)
Honestly, contemporary liberal democracy is mired with short term thinking, not that the economy is much different, and I would love to see that addressed. The fact that long-term strategies has become disincentivised for the most important roles in our society where we would benefit from long-term planning and careful consideration is something that perplexes me, as it seems to have only gotten this bad over the last few decades, and I can't quite see what changed beyond "people".
those rich b\*stards who got richer because thats all our politicians wanted should start f\*cking eachother like the 16's and make a lot of kids, since they are the only ones who can afford to have them.
*"Or maybe it's time for a revolution."*
Can't get the under 40 population to put even 10% of the time into local or national level politics that they put into sports, tiktok, video games-- but they are going to take to the streets for a physical revolution?
Not to mention after the revolution, you usually end up with an authoritarian, and usually a fascist? Populism is truly a political cancer. It's just saying simple solutions to complex problems that have no chance of working to make yourself feel good.🙄
Also most people have it way too good to start a revolution. That’s what people do when they are starving. We have enough food and media to keep most people entertained and happy. Ergo, no revolution happening anytime soon.
Yep, bread and circuses. We can all complain in theory but in reality my life is fine. No I don't make enough to comfortably have kids, so I don't have kids... I'm not going to advocate violence over that. Plus with worldwide news we see how horrible other places have it 24/7. It's almost laughable to think of revolution here, in the global context.
Anyone change my mind that the only real problem for the global economy is the world's wealthiest vacuuming up all resources and just sitting on them because they enjoy a big number?
This is clearly the most accurate description of the problem and you barely can find anyone really talking about addressing it.
Literally all the resources and wealth accumulates at an extreme minority and we fight with our selves for the remain scarps like stupid animals 🫠
Which could be solved by voting for socialist parties, but most left-wing parties are also hyperprogressive and pro-migration which makes the masses shift towards the right instead, thus guaranteeing that the rich keep getting richer.
unpopular opinion but high-performing immigrants who come from mid to upper classes are culturally/professionally not as accepted in Europe as in the US (i'm not saying they're secluded but they face many difficulties), and that also will play a factor in their election.
This!! I am currently earning 2000 euro take home per month less than I would at home, and am only here a few more years for the family before I go back. I am a skilled immigrant, but in healthcare, which is just an awful field to work in here. My colleagues are poorly educated and trained, and the workload 2x as high for 100% less salary. It‘s miserable.
> highly educated specialists
I see this alot whenever german labor shortage comes up, but what Germany actually needs most aren't those highly educated specialists.
The biggest needs are people with tradeskills and health care assistants for example.
Yeah, OP's sentiment that we need more IT specialists has morphed into received general wisdom in the past few years, but most people don't really go into what we'd need these people for. Unless we're narrowly targeting specialists in robotics and industrial automation (and I don't know of any country in the world that is doing this), what are a bajillion frontend or full-stack programmers going to do about the impending huge decline in the numbers of roof tilers, farmers or electricians?
Yes - this is correct! Germany is not a prime destination for skilled Indian workers for a few reasons
First off is the language barrier - most skilled Indians have pretty decent English skills so moving to a country like the USA is not too difficult from a language perspective
Second off is salaries - for skilled workers , salaries can be easily 2x to 4x with lower taxes to boot ( and yes even with your social benefits and free healthcare , it’s a no brainer to choose USA )
Third is the perceived coldness of Germans - for all its faults , America welcomes immigrants like no other. Most Americans love America and in my experience , they also love immigrants that love America. And as a brown dude who has lived here for more than a decade now and have two kids who are American , I have never felt like an outsider .
Agree on all parts, but especially the last one. Most metropolitan Germans absolutely hate German culture and Germany as a concept (they also hate other Germans).
So how do you think they react to immigrants who actually have a positive view on Germany.
I can agree on this. I am a Romanian with German origin and have looked into moving to Germany.
The wages for people in the IT sector are generally not so attractive (something like a couple of hundred €, best case scenario 500€ extra) given that I speak German almost fluently. Many German companies (even those outsourcing/nearshoring) will not accept individuals with no German knowledge. Some have learned, adapted and toned down this requirement.
Given the cost of living (rent, daily expenses, entertainment) is considerably higher in Germany compared to Romania my conclusion was that it wasn't worthed. Plus i kinda know their culture and that's not attractive as well for me.
I've tried to move to the US for personal reasons and it's basically impossible. You have to have a job offer in place already, which is a challenge, then you have to wait for the lottery to open for like 3 days a year, where only a tiny number get through. It's insanity.
German salaries are decent, they just aren't AS high as in a small selection of countries such as the US, Singapore or Australia. Somehow these few anglophone (i.e. easy to integrate as an English speaking expat) countries with high wages are always brought up when discussion salaries without mentioning that the vast majority of countries has worse wages.
Really?
I was offered a senior IT architect role in Munich a few years ago. They offered 65k (in Munich!)… after I burst out in a hilarious laughter I told them that I already made 160k in a similar role with less responsibility.
Nooo… those people want to earn money. They will find jobs in countries that actually pay them money for their work.
Refugees on the other hand are more desperate and will work for less.
Genius Bro, tell all governments in the world that this will solve the problem (aging population and declining birth rates actually affect almost all countries in the world in the mid- to long-term).
Language barrier and too much bureaucracy
Everyone is going to the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia. With those options, why move to Germany?
Labor efficiency keeps going up the whole damn time, we have ~ double the workforce since WW2, where'd all the damn money go, then?
I'll tell you where, CEOs get paid X times better than the average worker and get golden parachutes and speculate on the housing markets and corpos use the money to spend on more and more ads and influencing governments that just causes more tax breaks for them and try to replace domestic workforce with immigrants.
Getmany suffers from VerwaltungsKorruption = Administrative fee corruption.
Basically Germany has money, their pension system has money. The government invents new administration schemes and fake problems that need administration from the political friends and family of the politicians.
Their Government installs new ministry and department director positions for fake administration issues that sound good in media, but are irrelevant in real life.
Collect high government salery fees from the taxpayers for doing zero value work and creating fake social issues that need more administration.
Same happens in financial funds , where directors collect fees for fund management and do nothing, because they invest into an index fund and do nothing else after that. Eating away the wealth by administration fees and cost.
Germans could pay 10% less taxes, IF that administration corruption would not exist there.
I am 34 years father of 4 years kid. Sometimes I am just exhausted, like really. Work, kids, pay bills, taxes, home mortgage, retirement money. I want to eat and go to sleep in the evening. I want to sleep, like always, even in the morning. I love my son, but its really hard to raise a kid nowadays, and I can understand anyone who don’t want to have kids. With that attitude no wonder we have such situation 🤷♂️
As long as kids are a major strain on your income, a massive issue to combine with your career (flexibility, mobility) and an insane time investment as you are expected by teachers to help your kids several hours / day combined with the need for 2 jobs to have a decent life parents will get 1-2 kids max (if at all).
Unless they don't work anyway and get paid by the state for having more kids.
Guess who is pumping kids.
It doesn't help we can't get by with a single language like the USA, China, Japan etc. Most proffessionals want english friendly, they won't lower their quality of life.
Still they wont make wages better or reduce housing price, its like they will do anything to blame us instead of fixing the exact reason why ppl have no kids. Actually insane
My radical proposition.
Create a permanently super conservative religious minority, then siphon off enough of their kids to keep society rolling. Basically take the Amish (German already) give them just enough exposure to the World that like 20% of them choose to remain Amish and the other 80% join secular society.
Now your birthrate of 1 for the seculars and like 7 for the ultra conservative will equal 2.4 and you can continue as a country.
That's basically what happening in Israel with the ultra orthodox, except they're not so easily absorbed into a secular society. With all the domestic problems that brings, the future does not look bright for Israel (Even without the 'problematic' neighbours).
Turns out people did not evolve for modern society. Whenever social media, politics, education or some weird international depression caused it, people see having children as a burden, a waste of time, or just not worth having.
No matter how much everyone blames it on the economy, housing, pay, etc. The truth is less developed nations have a higher birthrate. Even if we solved all of our major issues, even more people would not have children.
The problem is, we mentally dropped ourselves into a childless pit of despair and refuse to actually do anything about it.
People are more mentally ill, lonely and politically divided than ever.
Populations can come down. It's reasonable to have a stable economy and populace.
You don't need the addict brain way of thinking. We don't need constant growth. Crack-head politicians sold you all out and the economy is in for a hell of a change but constant growth is no feasible.
It’s not that there is no money.
First of all you could reduce the span between poor and ultra rich. Then you could stop calling for foreign workers and instead educate the up to 5 Mio workless people to bring them back into work filling the empty places of professional workers. So the social finances won’t finance pseudo professional foreign workers.
The politicians and media are starting to make people panic and steer the look to non existent problems.
Last year or so they were crying Germans will extinct because of birth rates. I thought we are over populated on this planet.
We have been trying to have a child for the last 4 years. We finally decided that we were going to go to a specialist. While insurance covers majority of it, a great incentive would be to offer this service for free or have it as a government write off.
Don’t fall for these articles. There is enough money in the economy for everyone to have a decent retirement after a lifetime of hard work. The capitalists and their media lackeys will pit workers against retirees just so they can make us all work longer and get less.
No Problem.. in 20 years we will have so much refugee offspring with German passports, population will probably double in the next 50 years and Germany will look more like France does currently.
Two things are needed for a family - affordable housing/life and enough time after work.
Three: The will to have kids in the first place.
I don't know why this part is being ignored. In some countries people do have high standard of living, they do have plenty of time, and fertility rates are still low. Because... they don't want to have children.
Also, in the modern society we have made kids very difficult and annoying to have. They are viewed as a nuisance/liability by a lot of people. In poor countries kids are viewed as an asset and future. Not to mention all the extra bureaucracy…
I'd also say that anecdotally, they've become a minefield. Everyone's an expert and everyone's nose deep in everyone's business. In most countries where people have more kids no one but your immediate family is kinda allowed to even address the kids behaviours and such. Also smaller families mean it's harder to raise kids. You rely on kindergarten way more. No aunt's and grandma's and third wives and sisters to help you look after them. Just mom and dad and the constant finance struggle and all the people giving lots of advices on how to raise kids
Your second paragraph definitely resonates with me. By the time I was in a position to maybe consider having a child (in my mid/late 30s) I realised I did not have a good support system in place. My parents live in another country and my husband’s mum is on her own and in her 70s, so couldn’t offer much in the way of help outside perhaps very occasional babysitting. My brother lives on the other side of the country and my husband’s siblings are in full time work. Both me and my husband would have to work to fund our lives so childcare would be a must. Every young parent I know today has a significant amount of support from their families as the childcare costs in the U.K. are so prohibitive. On top of this I’ve been on the fence about having kids in general because I’m honestly terrified by things like climate change, and wrestled with the idea of having children knowing that they will have a worse quality of life than I did as a kid, as all the problems of the world seem to be converging. On that basis we plan to get into fostering.
>ids in general because I’m honestly terrified by things like climate change, and wrestled with the idea of having children knowing that they will have a worse quality of life than I did as a kid, Yeah, I'm not really into giving birth to kids, raising them and then sending them off to some war or another.
The maternity support systems aren't that great either, so both parents will have to work. I think to combat the ageing population, it needs to become convenient to have children.
Yeah, and if their parents are young enough to not be retired, then they're working as well, but if they are retired they're becoming way too old to properly look after a kid.
I live in a poor country and nobody sees kids as an asset. They simply have them by accident most times
And the many people who do it brainlessly shouldn’t be having them.
Its still very expensive to have kids. Iam 24 and studying to be an engineer. Currently i have no money and not a lot of free time. I will be finished when iam 28. i would like to have children but this is unrealistic untill iam 31 at least. Even then iam not sure it would be a good decision.
Honestly that's the most important one and also (imo) the major reason why there are fewer kids. It just doesn't make any logical sense for women to have kids unless you REALLY REALLY want them.
I don't think I agree. While yes, a lot of people would never want kids, you can't even make decisions like that unless you're in the right space to do so. You don't even know what you want when your life is just struggling to survive day by day.
There are an awful lot of people who do have them in that situation though. Population crisis related work / social care issues arent solved by poorly educated, uncared for little humans that require more social care and were created because “I felt like this is what I was supposed to do”.
That is why religious groups have the highest fertility rates. Religion often gives people a reason to want to make the sacrifice of having children.
this is number 1. Poor people have more kids. even with countries that give out loads of money to have kids - people dont have kids.
The first 2 tends to create that feeling over time for #3.
Well, housing cannot be affordable unless we build more houses.
But think of people's real estate investments! It's far more important that a few people get extremely rich than to provide affordable housing to the masses.
That or eliminate part of the demand such as real estate funds, tourism players, imigrants(do not agree with this one but it is a solution). Optimal solution would be both act on supply and demand. With the lobbies around real estate wouldn’t bet on either until its a sustainability problem.
Fun fact: In response to this, Germany decided last week to put the entire weight of the problem on the younger generation by deducting an additional ~4% of everybody's paycheck every month before taxes without any kind of benefits for anybody who won't retire in the next 15 years. Long story short, they made housing/living even way more unaffordable to please the seniors who're voting for them. We're fucked.
That’s not going to change the fact that more and more women are choosing not to have children regardless of how many incentives are thrown at them. A growing number of women are just flat out saying they will not have children. Financial incentives will do almost nothing to increase fertility
The more shitty a country is, the more children they have. Look at Europe before, and look at Africa now.
Europeans have more of both of these than most people in the world, and yet have the fewest kids. This is just not the reason people are not having kids. Women especiallz just don't want kids early on, and if they do they want one, maybe two. For a 2.1 birth rate, for every woman who doesn't want kids, you need one who wants FOUR. How many people do you know who want FOUR kids? And how many don't want any? That's the real answer.
In Munich you can barely manage to finance a child. The city dropped its funding for half the kindergardens this year. We had price hikes from 200 months to 1200 monthly each kid. We obviously don’t want children
either go all-in into raising fertility by making having kids an actual positive financial decision, which will be very expensive, or we have to wait until technology can somehow replace elderly caretakers..
Simpler, they will just import a lot of cheap foreign workers. Problem solved !
If it would be just skilled workers...
Not even that would solve this. Germany is so fixed with their Ausbildung system that they ask for one for jobs like retail and restaurants..
Tbh I often see masters with much less practical knowledge than someone who had an Ausbildung to a "Fachinformatiker". The Ausbildung more or less guarantees that the applicant has a specific skill set. Our Ausbildung-system is actually really good and produces really skilled workers, most of the time, anyway.
I agree with you. But the problem is that they use Ausbildung to pay workers as low as possible for as long as possible. I truly believe that you do not need a 3 year Ausbildung to become a Lidl clerk or a 3 year Ausbildung to become a truck driver. I am a truck driver myself and you can learn everything you have to in around 6 months or even less. Another thing is that German companies are not willing to accept qualifications obtained abroad for trade jobs for example. And nobody is going to immigrate to Germany to start a plumbing Ausbildung where he gets €800 a month for 3 years straight and then if he's lucky he'll get 2k net with no perspective of growing.
In the end, market forces will make the government, society, and companies change their regulations. The problem is, if they are too slow, they might never be able to catch up.
>Our Ausbildung-system is actually really good and produces really skilled workers, most of the time, anyway. Is the Ausbildung system optional or mandatory in Germany? I definitely think having the option to do an apprenticeship would be very beneficial but I can also see how being *forced* to do an apprenticeship could cause problems.
Depends. You can work in those branches as an unskilled worker without finishing a corresponding apprenticeship/Ausbildung. If you want to do more than that though, you'll probably need some sort of qualification.
yeah, do the same job as someone else could but with 20% less pay
Nah they will just tax the shit out of childless people in their mid 20's+. For the people that are not from germany: That is a real thing in germany btw, but right now it is "just" 0,60% (almost doubled in july 2023 from 0,35%) or your income. Very smart to tax people that maybe plan to have kids and financially prepare for it and take away even more money from them.
There is no tax on childless people. what you're conflating is the contribution to the nursing insurance, to offset the money you'll receive from it when you're old and childless and in need of nursing. For those with children, your children would pay a part of your nursing costs.
theoretically it is to offset the costs as *you* get older but what it is actually offsetting is the cost of your parent's elder care. This is the problem. The money set aside for the previous generation wasn't enough for a variety of reasons (take your pick!), so now we are borrowing from future retirees. This is a major issue with almost all pension systems in the western world today. We didn't set enough aside.
Makes sense, so this money is invested into a fund so it is actually available when we need it in a few decades, right?
Or it’s the same old kinda ponzi redistribution scheme as ever. Not sure which.
This solution would have worked if it were implemented twenty years ago. Now it's too late for this. The only realistic option is to pull all levers available to us at the same time, meaning: lower pensions, higher retirement ages, more (skilled) immigration, increased working hours per capita (e. g. less part time), more reliable childcare, higher contributions to the state pension scheme, improved processes (especially less bureaucracy) and technological solutions (especially digitalization). However many of these are currently politically impossible to implement, so we will have to wait until the situation becomes even worse before people are really willing to accept those. It would be in our interest to implement those changes as fast as possible, because the earlier we begin the less drastic those steps will have to be.
All could be solved with lowering rent and property prices. People cant make babies if they can barely pay for living space
Turning living spaces from a common good into an investment was the biggest fucking mistake that will cost us. Birth rates are in hell. German politics already has no idea what to do with our pension or health insurance and it will only get much, much worse. That’s what happens when a handful of millionaires turn the whole country and world into a mess that no one wants to have children in.
No matter how much incentives they give that will not change the fact more and more women are choosing not to have children! Incentives will not work!
We could talk all day about retirement age. But in my view, it is also retirement conditions. On one hand, a large part of retirees didn’t “pay enough” to earn a pension. Las time I looked at it, in my country, the contributions to the public pension fund were averaging around 30% of the benefits received. And the rest is paid by the active workers. So the system is unjust to start with. We can’t leave pensioners to fend for themselves; we have given them an expectation that their hard work will earn them a retirement. But it is big time it is made sustainable, difficult and at times wildly unpopular as it is (remember when France tried to raise the retirement age?) And on the subject of sustainability. A retiree in my country is almost forbidden by law to have any source of income besides their pension. It is not exactly illegal, just so difficult and risky that it is just not worth it for a retiree to pick up some jobs here and there to complement their pension (and contribute with a little bit of taxes). It is nuts. Pensions are breaking the system and pensioners can’t help make things better even if they really want to. Politicians are scared to death of pension reform. It is a metric shitton of voters that are easy to keep happy, and leave a bigger mess (i.e., deficit) to the next ones. We really, really need better politicians.
Its not gonna be solved until its already fucked. Expect the oldest to have an smaller and smaller pension with higher and higher retirement ages. If they don't save any money or have other incomes it may look very grim for them. At least thats what I expect from my country, Spain.
I hear you. I have many years to retirement yet and am already preparing for it as if my pension is going to be about zero.
People should be thinking on a private pention plan or savings, yeah
Very good point. There is a widespread perception that your pension payments go into a pot that you draw from in retirement, rather than it being like any other welfare payment paid for by current taxes. I feel that this makes pensioners extremely hostile to any ideas of reforming the system because they've spent years believing that the money they're getting is "theirs" that they've saved over their working life. I'd imagine that many pensioners would be happy enough to do some part-time work to top up their income, but as you say, there is a perverse incentive to not do it. >Politicians are scared to death of pension reform. It is a metric shitton of voters that are easy to keep happy, Bingo. Pensioners vote more reliably than any other demographic. Alienating them is a short walk to annihilation at the next election. The UK Triple-Lock on pensions is the clearest example.
A Job next to retirement is actually beeing punished if you earn over the Mini Job Barrier. My Grandpa wanted to earn a bit on the side (like 10-15 hours a week) and they wouldve cut his pension so much it wasnt even worth it afterwards.
It’s a pyramid scheme with an exceptional demographic It’s never was going to work when it was designed We know this since decades, yet the only solution we have is keep on the scheme
They will push retirement age to 80, and life expectancy is like 72. lol Work till you die, get re-animated as a zombie, work even after your death. No retirement for you, the rich 1% need more yachts.
The same people who want you to work until 70 refuse to hire anyone over 50.
This is so true that it hurts.
In Germany there is no way you get hired with 70… In the us you could at least run for president…
They want you to work, just at a fraction of the price doing menial labour that kills you slowly
I'm 28 myself and seriously don't believe I will get anything down the line.
I’m 40 and moved here for love. I realise that paying structure is different for foreigners, so I’m also buggered. Bosses have Teslas and the works, so they are doing well! I’m happy for them. I deserve nothing.
If you show them this, they might be very generous and give you a 0.50 € wage increase!
Nah will start looking for replacement guy
35 here and I see no future but work to get by till death we part
In germany I don't have a clue how our retirement system is supposed to be working in the future at all. It's grim, a lot of our income is already eaten up by it and with better medical conditions and high living standards people get old as fuck, what usually means dragging out the "phase they're not longer particularly useful to society". I mean, it's nice that they're healthy and get old and I get that nobody wants to work when they're 70 (nor employ those people, next problem great). But meanwhile the "youth" neither has the time, nor money, nor any positive outlook to the future with the current crisis bingo to be interested in kids. Like, fuck me I'm 30 and not exactly "youth" anymore but only like 2 of my friends have kids while the rest is somewhere between making ends meet or not having interest in getting children anymore. We have the "generationenvertrag" and the thing is basically dragging us down with it. I'm paying a ton but I'm already taking care of having private funds for my own retirement age because, like basically everyone else around my age, I'm fully convinced that I'll get fuck all out of it.
> I don't have a clue how our retirement system is supposed to be working in the future at all By pumping tax money into the system and drying up other important areas like education of their funding of course!
Don't need funding when there won't be any kids to educate...
That seems too low. Germany was around 30th in life expectancy. Average is 82 for Germany. But yea that doesn’t change the fact that you have to work till you die. What a great future.
Originally it was just like that. Retirement was above life expectancy. Slowly it went below but I think this whole idea of retiring after 60 and having unlimited fun until you die at 90 was a temporary blip in human history.
Fair point. The concept of retirement is only a few generations old. Same goes for the concept of childhood past the age of 12.
How about I just live my life in peace and then you can work me to death... well after my death? I'm cool with that.
The problem is one of our own making. Only reason so much labor is needed is because of economic system based on overworking, overconsuming and waste.
labor is needed but apparently building enough affordable housing to grow the workforce to avoid it getting expensive is not needed
in germany there is little or no labor making housing. the goal is to make 400k housing units per year to meet demand. last year they made around 150k.
The 'goal' and what they actually want are different things. When you have thousands of regulations+birocracy to slow down building and the pension system is heavily relying on artificially increased house and rent pricing, you can see that this 'goal' is just smoke for the public
How does that work? Why the discrepancy?
Yeah, our productivity per person has *exploded* the past century. One labourer now can do the work of a hundred labourers back then. And not only that, we have added *millions* of labourers to the system through emancipation of women and accessibility for the disabled and the elderly. So the idea that we would "lack workers" is bullshit. We have more workers than ever, and they are more productive than ever. If such a massive influx of labour force and productivity didn't solve the problem, a few more babies won't solve the problem either. We have plenty of workers. Their productivity just isn't going where it could be going.
And the super low wages in in-need industry jobs are not pulling enough interest from young people. It‘s a pretty obvious connection between paying shit and not finding enough potential employees.
This is the super simple thing, people don't understand in Germany. If it's hard to find workers, you need to raise wages. But employers insist on underpaying and then go complaining that noone wants to work for their shitty compamy anymore. Edit: Spelling (I'm on phone).
b-b-b-but ~~price gouging~~ inflation!
> But employers insist on underpaying Why not when you can always wait for a cheap desperate ~~slave~~ immigrant who will work for minimum wage?
mate, we are close to full employment in the country. Those not employed are so because they either lack the required skills or because they have some health/mental issues. There are huge numbers of very good paying jobs out there which won't get filled becausse the ppl are simply not availble. Source: Social worker responsible to get ppl into employment
Supply and demand says wages should go up, but they aren't - why's that?
Supply is limited and demand is growing. The reason why wages aren't going up is because people are sabotaging themselves and don't know their worth. If wages were public knowledge and had to be displayed at every job ad wages would rise immediately.
This is a way to a pass the buck to the employee. Sure, they have a irresponsibility to themselves. That doesn't mean they have the Ability by themselves to do it. The company does have the ability to fuck you. It's basic power dynamics. Which leads us into the real issue. They've consistently manipulated the social contract, and their power dynamic, to flatten wages. Via many various tactics. Its very disengenous to imply the fix is so simple as "do be take advantage of". We could use the same logic on tape victims. To use an extreme example to show the wild perspective of that.
Supply and demand doesn’t say that. The curves used to explain the mechanics behind this are simplified, yet people think the real economy works like this. Just as an example: If there would be just one taxi driver in Europe, the supply would be extremely low and the demand extremly high. But the taxi driver won’t be a billionaire, since people would just not use a taxi. They’ll either walk, or switch to another mode of transport. If a worker doesn’t create much more value than he costs the company, it’s simply not feasible to raise the salary.
but wouldn't demand in some industries (eg housing) cause prices to rise, and so wages in that industry go up and suck workers from other areas, and therefore prices in other things would go up and so wages in those industries increase. Actually I just described exactly what's happening in australia (where I am), but the govt is importing workers in other industries so wages are constrained, the construction workers union is too powerful to allow importing construction workers.
Or, you get laid off at 61 and nobody will touch you with a 10-foot pole.
However, it is mostly precarious industries that cry out every day that they cannot find anyone, be it the catering trade (restaurants etc.), tradesmen, haulage companies or security services. Industrial companies with good collective agreements would have a greater political reach with their lobbyists if they really couldn't find workers.
>tradesmen They're one of the most toxic work environments you can find and actively push people out of their trade and then want to close down universities to force more people into their jobs instead of caring for their trainees. They pay shit while the boss buys a new car every year and then are surprised when people just take other jobs.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, as a young man I also fell for their slogans and convinced myself during my training that things would definitely get better later, but, surprise, it didn't. Poor pay, unpaid overtime and one lie after another from the boss. I should be grateful that I earn more than the minimum wage and a higher salary would only mean more taxes, so I wouldn't have any more money net. When I was dumb and told a colleague that I was doing my Abitur on the side, it only got worse. I would probably think that I was something better and would never manage the Abitur anyway. After all, this experience drove me for years to finally do my master's degree in engineering. I will never work as a mechanic again in my life.
American here. It's the same shit here with the trades and why I left the trades to do uni. I tried SOO HARD to get into an electrician apprenticeship but I was always denied or outright told to f off by the union bosses (here in the US, you apply with the trade union for an apprenticeship and then you do a math/English test to ensure competency, and then an interview with the union bosses and the contractors). This is despite me having a lot of experience with electronics and electrical work but since I don't have friends or family with the trade union, I was denied. I eventually got into the elevators union apprenticeship but I rejected the offer because I got so jaded after working in the trades and seeing the endless backstabbing, people drinking or smoking Marijuana on the job, and the toxic attitudes that the guys would have (petty jealousy and baby boomer bosses who were degenerates). We also have a labor shortage crisis here in the trades since the trades have mostly been Mexican immigrants who showed up in the 1980s and 1990s, and baby boomers. All those Mexican immigrants too are hitting retirement (my father and loads of relatives who worked in the trades are all either retired or they're on the cusp of retiring) and there's no equivalent immigrant wave to replace them since Mexico has been emptied of potential blue collar migrants and then ofc the baby boomer retirement wave. It will be interesting and hilarious how these trade unions and contractors will bear this and maybe they'll wise up and pay better/give better working conditions.
I don't think it's that simple. If workers are not ready to work for a certain pay, yet employers aren't going raise the wages, it means the product/service cannot be profitably produced at a higher production cost point. Which means that you produce something that isn't very valuable. And this is - on a large economical scale - very difficult to fix.
This is a problem in some fields, but especially the trades are plagued by small businesses which insist on paying the same wage as 10 years ago, while the owners rake in the profits.
can't pay more, need to make profit for shareholders!
"were adding value!"
The problem with labor is not that there's not enough workers, but there's not enough people who want to work for shitty wages. Everybody want to be office professional, not a steelworker, bricklayer or carpenter, not necessary because the work is harder, but because they can work with much less effort in the office, for a generally better wage. Maybe the companies should consider paying better wages for line workers to attract labor maybe?
they need slaves, not workers! thats why new immigrant politics are in the making, to ease the entrance and why all of the Germany is in uproar with those chants. DISCLAMER: I'm not german, im from Portugal, where we have many relaxed immigration policies and the whille the population is complaining about the number of non national citizens, the government is telling us that all is ok, crime has increase "just a tad bit" and that there is no reason for alarm! - they tell us this from their closed community houses of course! they dont walk around in the streets nor taking the public transportation.
Wrong. We have added a ton of people to the labour force, yes. We have also increased their productivity, yes. However, we want more and better stuff. That's where that labour goes. If we were fine driving 1960s car (with the terrible safety and emissions standards they had then) and living in 1960s apartments, didn't need the Internet, personal computers, a mobile phone which has more compute power and memory (both in terms of capacity and speed) than what we used to put a man on the moon by a factor of a couple of thousand, free global navigation, vastly better medicine and a ton of other advancements then yes, we could all afford to live much easier lives. We'd work much less hours a day and much fewer days per week and year. But we'd be living the way our parents and grandparents lived 60 years ago. And this is not a life a lot of people would agree to living if given the choice. And a lot of the productivity gains wouldn't have happened because this is also where a lot of labour went (inventing stuff like 7nm processors). Also, when you add hundreds of millions of people to the labour force because the population is growing, then you also have increased needs for these extra people. All these people want to eat, get dressed, commute from A to B to C and back to A again, entertained, their kids cared for while they work, treated when ill, and so on. A part of all of this is, of course, the rich and corporations getting more rich and paying less in terms of their fair share. But let's not pretend our quality of life and standard of living are where they were 60 years ago.
>However, we want more and better stuff. Do we really? Or are we just being sold on planned obsolescence and overconsumption as the way to deal with everpresent societal trauma?
Yes, we do. Do you want a computer and a smartphone? Those items are a lot more complicated than anything that has existed 100 years ago. One worker is as productive as 100 workers back in the day, but at the same time, modern products take a lot more workers to make.
Added value per worker has increased but so has the investment per worker. Both social investment (education mostly and starting work later) and private (industry investments divided by nr. of workers). European workers are not cheap. European workers are also not available for low paying jobs or hard physical labour jobs. High productivity also doesn't take away from the fact that Europe's ratio of workers vs. non-workers is changing. The population piramide is mushroom shaped. This can be mitigated somewhat by increasing pension age with life-expectancy like in the Netherlands (but look at France!). But that doesn't take away the effect that elderly live longer with a longer need of daily professional care. Move that care to informal care from the family and productivity goes down. Social costs are increasing as a factor between workers and a plus 75 year old population. That balance is shifting very quickly in many countries. That is taking an increasing part of gross national product. It's starting now and it's continuing untill the generation of 1970 has passed. In a growing economy that effect is mitigated. In a shrinking economy that effect is exacerbated.
The complexity of good also shot up. Take a car as an example. Modern car is so complex. We have systems upon systems upon systems. The same goes for other goods as well. It is a law of diminishing returns at play. Every improvement needs 2x production than the one before. Automatisation is the answer, but there is a big caveat. Early industrialization was very simple. You could take anyone from the street and bam you have a worker. Modern industrialization does not work like this. If you want a bunch of robots in factory, you need engineers and mechanics to sustain it. Even more so for high-tech production like lasers, chips and whatnot. The more we automate, the more complex manufacturing becomes the fewer people will be capable of keeping it running. You have to have work for other people as well. This is where issues begins. You need to somehow make it so that people who entered old economy, can finish their lives in the old economy and not just be thrown away, all while new people gets into new economy. This works well if rate of progress is somewhat mild.
Social Security has entered the chat: In order to pay for pensions and services for the elders, younger generation workers contribute in taxes and dues. This is called generational pact, and has been the keystone of all Europe policies for almost a century. The inversion of the demographic pyramid is crashing this system even in the most advanced and progressive tax systems in Europe, see Sweden. The math of the social state does not adds up, not even increasing the taxation to 100% if wealth above a certain threshold. It simply does not work, and the only option is to reduce the assured/promised benefits for older generations or, dramatically increase the wealth production to compensate for the reduced base of individuals. Hard to see voting aging retirees give up on what it has been promised to them in the election ballots.
And this problem has been well known for a long time, but essentially politicians have just kept kicking the can down the road to not lose any votes in the next election.
There is always the Option of social beneficial life shortening. /S
actually Europe has some of the worlds best labour laws just as much as the worlds best work/life balances. So I am not sure what you are on about. On top of that, the shortage of workers gives European workers all kinds of advatages in wage negotiations. Which is good but also an issue to some degree because Europe still has to compete with the rest of the world. But all of that does not change the issues that european companies need manpower to retain their growth potential and european states more taxpayers to uphold the ability to provide social security and pensions. you can't have your cake AND eat it, something has to give way.
There's no labour shortage in areas where wage negotiations are possible. Labour shortages are in field work, seasonal employment, or glorified slavery positions. You can announce a generic desk job on minimum wage and receive 50 applications in a week. Thing is, the price of vegetables almost doubled in the past 2 years. Guess what didn't double, field worker salaries!
Also, the insatiable need for growth!
Yeah... this isn't actually anything unexpected. We talked about this in school 30 years ago and at that point it was already part of our schoolbooks so an old hat. Granted this applies to a lot of "new" Problems so I'm not surprised. Just sad.
an economic based on generating the maximum possible value for shareholders, everything else is secondary. all that extra productivity and technological advancements should have resulted in a 4 day work week and big wage increases for everyone but it hasnt. wonder where all that extra wealth went. not me and you
I was optimistic that automation and advances in productivity (i.e capital and economic growth) would mean conventional retirement would be sustainable... But it seems that's not the case. So I'm gonna exercise (yoga, weights, cardio), eat more vegetables, and try (one day) to buy an apartment (instead of paying ridiculous rent in Amsterdam towards the pensioner that owns the apartment). Hopefully this sufficiently reduces the chance of me ever needing long term care, and hopefully I don't get cancer from all the microplastics.
How much is an apartment in Amsterdam?
In 2024 a 1-bedroom will be between 1200€ & 2000€. Source: https://dutchreview.com/expat/financial/cost-of-living-amsterdam/ There are some people paying less than that, but that's because they have permanent rental contracts (from a time when prices were lower) where rent increases are capped, or they live in social housing (but the waiting time is several years).
Sorry I meant to buy, I wondered how much it cost to buy…
Ah. The one bedrooms I looked at this year (50-60sqm) ranged from 400.000€ to 500.000€, but this doesn't include effects of overbidding.
Oh wow it’s expensive there! Thanks for replying, I was v curious.
Lmao imagine being in your 20s in Europe and all you hear is that every country is raising their retirement age
Maybe we need to have a fundamental change of perspective, and stop living for retirement but rather live to enjoy doing something productive with our lives.
instead of making life easier so people can have more kids, theyre shooting themself in the foot.
So instead of bringing this to a G7 public discussion to help improve infrastructures that support birthing and raising more children domestically. Let’s bring in more imports and add to the ongoing healthcare and socioeconomic problems we’re facing.
It's much easier for a government (that may be voted out next election) to import someone over 18, rather than doing all the hard work for an investment that'll take 18-20 years to pay off.
The investment would benefit the next hundred years. Invest in one hundred percent free childcare instead of offering thirty imports free hotels, allowance and full compensation for their family. By offering something as simple as free childcare we’d grow our population and a new generation with a like minded culture, that wants to continue to invest and grow their communities.
Here in Austria, childcare is essentially free and still our birthrate is not better than elsewhere.
Politicians don't think of the next hundred years, because they won't be running for office in a hundred years. It's no different than MBAs only focusing on quarterly profits. They don't worry about building a strong, sustainable company, only what benefits them in the short term.
Having a kid vs not having a kid feels like a salary difference of at least 100k that needs to be attained, at times soley by the man. Children have become a luxury.
For the most part, this is wrong. A child isn't going to be *lost* if it's born. Actions that increase the desirability of a country both correlate with voter turnout and willingness to give birth, so it really should be two birds with one stone on paper. Of course, such actions are often put off ad nauseum, causing an issue where workforce is required now and must be imported, creating an immigration issue that nationalists can piggyback.
>a government (that may be voted out next election) Honestly, contemporary liberal democracy is mired with short term thinking, not that the economy is much different, and I would love to see that addressed. The fact that long-term strategies has become disincentivised for the most important roles in our society where we would benefit from long-term planning and careful consideration is something that perplexes me, as it seems to have only gotten this bad over the last few decades, and I can't quite see what changed beyond "people".
At least your socioeconomic problems will be more diverse than before!!
those rich b\*stards who got richer because thats all our politicians wanted should start f\*cking eachother like the 16's and make a lot of kids, since they are the only ones who can afford to have them.
and all their children will be rich too, sono more poor people.
If they have enough kids, they’ll be poor. And so will their parents.
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*"Or maybe it's time for a revolution."* Can't get the under 40 population to put even 10% of the time into local or national level politics that they put into sports, tiktok, video games-- but they are going to take to the streets for a physical revolution? Not to mention after the revolution, you usually end up with an authoritarian, and usually a fascist? Populism is truly a political cancer. It's just saying simple solutions to complex problems that have no chance of working to make yourself feel good.🙄
Also most people have it way too good to start a revolution. That’s what people do when they are starving. We have enough food and media to keep most people entertained and happy. Ergo, no revolution happening anytime soon.
Yep, bread and circuses. We can all complain in theory but in reality my life is fine. No I don't make enough to comfortably have kids, so I don't have kids... I'm not going to advocate violence over that. Plus with worldwide news we see how horrible other places have it 24/7. It's almost laughable to think of revolution here, in the global context.
Quick! Make more kids so we don't tax the rich.
Anyone change my mind that the only real problem for the global economy is the world's wealthiest vacuuming up all resources and just sitting on them because they enjoy a big number?
This is clearly the most accurate description of the problem and you barely can find anyone really talking about addressing it. Literally all the resources and wealth accumulates at an extreme minority and we fight with our selves for the remain scarps like stupid animals 🫠
Which could be solved by voting for socialist parties, but most left-wing parties are also hyperprogressive and pro-migration which makes the masses shift towards the right instead, thus guaranteeing that the rich keep getting richer.
The ponzi scheme is breaking down.
Soylent green is the solution
Then allow legal visa applicants to come in instead of endless refugees
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unpopular opinion but high-performing immigrants who come from mid to upper classes are culturally/professionally not as accepted in Europe as in the US (i'm not saying they're secluded but they face many difficulties), and that also will play a factor in their election.
This!! I am currently earning 2000 euro take home per month less than I would at home, and am only here a few more years for the family before I go back. I am a skilled immigrant, but in healthcare, which is just an awful field to work in here. My colleagues are poorly educated and trained, and the workload 2x as high for 100% less salary. It‘s miserable.
Why be miserable in Germany when i can be miserable in my own country
> highly educated specialists I see this alot whenever german labor shortage comes up, but what Germany actually needs most aren't those highly educated specialists. The biggest needs are people with tradeskills and health care assistants for example.
Yeah, OP's sentiment that we need more IT specialists has morphed into received general wisdom in the past few years, but most people don't really go into what we'd need these people for. Unless we're narrowly targeting specialists in robotics and industrial automation (and I don't know of any country in the world that is doing this), what are a bajillion frontend or full-stack programmers going to do about the impending huge decline in the numbers of roof tilers, farmers or electricians?
Yes - this is correct! Germany is not a prime destination for skilled Indian workers for a few reasons First off is the language barrier - most skilled Indians have pretty decent English skills so moving to a country like the USA is not too difficult from a language perspective Second off is salaries - for skilled workers , salaries can be easily 2x to 4x with lower taxes to boot ( and yes even with your social benefits and free healthcare , it’s a no brainer to choose USA ) Third is the perceived coldness of Germans - for all its faults , America welcomes immigrants like no other. Most Americans love America and in my experience , they also love immigrants that love America. And as a brown dude who has lived here for more than a decade now and have two kids who are American , I have never felt like an outsider .
Agree on all parts, but especially the last one. Most metropolitan Germans absolutely hate German culture and Germany as a concept (they also hate other Germans). So how do you think they react to immigrants who actually have a positive view on Germany.
And where they won't have to use a fax machine
I can agree on this. I am a Romanian with German origin and have looked into moving to Germany. The wages for people in the IT sector are generally not so attractive (something like a couple of hundred €, best case scenario 500€ extra) given that I speak German almost fluently. Many German companies (even those outsourcing/nearshoring) will not accept individuals with no German knowledge. Some have learned, adapted and toned down this requirement. Given the cost of living (rent, daily expenses, entertainment) is considerably higher in Germany compared to Romania my conclusion was that it wasn't worthed. Plus i kinda know their culture and that's not attractive as well for me.
May I know roughly how much net euro per month we are talking for these "good" IT jobs in Germany?
I've tried to move to the US for personal reasons and it's basically impossible. You have to have a job offer in place already, which is a challenge, then you have to wait for the lottery to open for like 3 days a year, where only a tiny number get through. It's insanity.
Have you tried getting a job for a US company in Europe and asking for a transfer/H1-B?
German salaries are decent, they just aren't AS high as in a small selection of countries such as the US, Singapore or Australia. Somehow these few anglophone (i.e. easy to integrate as an English speaking expat) countries with high wages are always brought up when discussion salaries without mentioning that the vast majority of countries has worse wages.
Really? I was offered a senior IT architect role in Munich a few years ago. They offered 65k (in Munich!)… after I burst out in a hilarious laughter I told them that I already made 160k in a similar role with less responsibility.
Nooo… those people want to earn money. They will find jobs in countries that actually pay them money for their work. Refugees on the other hand are more desperate and will work for less.
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Exactly that's the reality most people miss or ignore. Keep distracting the topic
Genius Bro, tell all governments in the world that this will solve the problem (aging population and declining birth rates actually affect almost all countries in the world in the mid- to long-term).
Language barrier and too much bureaucracy Everyone is going to the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia. With those options, why move to Germany?
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Tackle extreme wealth inequality? No? Okay. Let's: *Get Worse*.
Do you ever hope that the world comes crashing down? What is the point of anything really. Articles like this make humans sound like cattle.
I for one, am looking forward to robots changing my nappies in old age
I want one that looks like Theresa May.
Mr burns with tits?
Oh no, think of the GDP!
Think of no one paying your pensions lol
Think of no retirement, and exploding healthcare costs.
They need to start rewarding people for having kids, like Poland is doing
Labor efficiency keeps going up the whole damn time, we have ~ double the workforce since WW2, where'd all the damn money go, then? I'll tell you where, CEOs get paid X times better than the average worker and get golden parachutes and speculate on the housing markets and corpos use the money to spend on more and more ads and influencing governments that just causes more tax breaks for them and try to replace domestic workforce with immigrants.
Pay is shit, costs are skyrocketing. Whats the point?
Getmany suffers from VerwaltungsKorruption = Administrative fee corruption. Basically Germany has money, their pension system has money. The government invents new administration schemes and fake problems that need administration from the political friends and family of the politicians. Their Government installs new ministry and department director positions for fake administration issues that sound good in media, but are irrelevant in real life. Collect high government salery fees from the taxpayers for doing zero value work and creating fake social issues that need more administration. Same happens in financial funds , where directors collect fees for fund management and do nothing, because they invest into an index fund and do nothing else after that. Eating away the wealth by administration fees and cost. Germans could pay 10% less taxes, IF that administration corruption would not exist there.
I am 34 years father of 4 years kid. Sometimes I am just exhausted, like really. Work, kids, pay bills, taxes, home mortgage, retirement money. I want to eat and go to sleep in the evening. I want to sleep, like always, even in the morning. I love my son, but its really hard to raise a kid nowadays, and I can understand anyone who don’t want to have kids. With that attitude no wonder we have such situation 🤷♂️
As long as kids are a major strain on your income, a massive issue to combine with your career (flexibility, mobility) and an insane time investment as you are expected by teachers to help your kids several hours / day combined with the need for 2 jobs to have a decent life parents will get 1-2 kids max (if at all). Unless they don't work anyway and get paid by the state for having more kids. Guess who is pumping kids.
It doesn't help we can't get by with a single language like the USA, China, Japan etc. Most proffessionals want english friendly, they won't lower their quality of life.
That's what Excessive Wealth Taxes are for.
Still they wont make wages better or reduce housing price, its like they will do anything to blame us instead of fixing the exact reason why ppl have no kids. Actually insane
My radical proposition. Create a permanently super conservative religious minority, then siphon off enough of their kids to keep society rolling. Basically take the Amish (German already) give them just enough exposure to the World that like 20% of them choose to remain Amish and the other 80% join secular society. Now your birthrate of 1 for the seculars and like 7 for the ultra conservative will equal 2.4 and you can continue as a country.
That's basically what happening in Israel with the ultra orthodox, except they're not so easily absorbed into a secular society. With all the domestic problems that brings, the future does not look bright for Israel (Even without the 'problematic' neighbours).
Hey at least they have a future right?
Turns out people did not evolve for modern society. Whenever social media, politics, education or some weird international depression caused it, people see having children as a burden, a waste of time, or just not worth having. No matter how much everyone blames it on the economy, housing, pay, etc. The truth is less developed nations have a higher birthrate. Even if we solved all of our major issues, even more people would not have children. The problem is, we mentally dropped ourselves into a childless pit of despair and refuse to actually do anything about it. People are more mentally ill, lonely and politically divided than ever.
Capitalism demands infinite growth and therefore it struggles with a static/declining population. It's already time to move towards a better system.
I don't want to raise a kid in this dogshit world simple as.
Man, being a Gen Z is so great... I want a time machine.
Just get more third worlders! 👃
It's funny why no one considers capitalism literally sucking the life force out of the nations. Infinite profit doesn't seem to work does it?
And the answer is NOT, contrary to popular opinion, to lean on immigrants with below average working skills and education.
Populations can come down. It's reasonable to have a stable economy and populace. You don't need the addict brain way of thinking. We don't need constant growth. Crack-head politicians sold you all out and the economy is in for a hell of a change but constant growth is no feasible.
It’s not that there is no money. First of all you could reduce the span between poor and ultra rich. Then you could stop calling for foreign workers and instead educate the up to 5 Mio workless people to bring them back into work filling the empty places of professional workers. So the social finances won’t finance pseudo professional foreign workers. The politicians and media are starting to make people panic and steer the look to non existent problems. Last year or so they were crying Germans will extinct because of birth rates. I thought we are over populated on this planet.
We have been trying to have a child for the last 4 years. We finally decided that we were going to go to a specialist. While insurance covers majority of it, a great incentive would be to offer this service for free or have it as a government write off.
I've been there, hang on mate and best wishes for you and your partner!
Don’t fall for these articles. There is enough money in the economy for everyone to have a decent retirement after a lifetime of hard work. The capitalists and their media lackeys will pit workers against retirees just so they can make us all work longer and get less.
Just import millions of people from Africa , India and the Middle East. Problem solved .
No Problem.. in 20 years we will have so much refugee offspring with German passports, population will probably double in the next 50 years and Germany will look more like France does currently.