China shock treatment.
If the Chinese can’t displace the American workforce anymore, then they’ll displace another one (or two, or three…).
The China shock hits Germany – Trade with China displaced large parts of the American workforce in the 2000s, but Germany did not experience a similar shock at the time…
Brilliant. This is better than free lunch!
Why didn’t anyone ever think of this before?
Free money for all: Germany’s basic income experiment – One of the world’s most extensive studies on unconditional basic income was held in Germany. What does the experiment reveal?
… It is seen as a redistribution of wealth through taxes. In the activists’ calculation, Germany’s top earners — 10% of the population — would end up contributing a part of their income to everyone else. They estimate that 83% of the population would thereby have access to more money. The remaining 7% mid-earners would be unaffected by the redistribution scheme.
In times of rising populism, the basic income activists believe that this is a way to combat the population’s dissatisfaction due to wealth inequality.
That means unemployment.
Germany: Number of unemployed highest in 10 years – The number of unemployed people in Germany has risen to its highest in a decade. The rise comes as the weakness of Europe’s largest economy took its toll on the labor market.
But it’s not as risky as investing in Germany.
German Fortune 500 companies have announced over 60,000 layoffs this year, but the biggest employee cull is still to come – German companies in the Fortune 500 Europe have announced over 60,000 layoffs this year, in a sign of the country’s ongoing economic malaise that has left manufacturers reeling.
Major German employers, including Bosch, Thyssenkrupp, Deutsche Bahn, and Siemens, have this year announced plans to lay off thousands of workers in a bid to combat falling profits following a rocky post-COVID economic landscape.
Hiring war gestern (was yesterday).
German companies’ hiring plans drop to four-year low, Ifo finds – German companies are less willing to hire new staff than at any point in more than four years, data from the Ifo institute showed on Monday, as weakness in Europe’s largest economy has left its mark on the country’s labour market.
Ifo’s employment barometer fell to 93.7 points in October from 94.0 points in September, the lowest level since July 2020.
To find a job in a country that has…
some of the lowest salaries in Europe,
the highest taxes in Europe (if not in the world),
the highest social “contributions” (taxes) in Europe,
some of the lowest retirement pensions in Europe (unless you’re a civil servant),
the highest energy prices in Europe,
the highest water and sewage costs in Europe,
some of the highest real estate taxes and related bureaucratic costs in Europe,
some of the highest rents and real estate prices in Europe and
a catastrophic lack of available apartments.
I’ll stop there. For now.
So don’t miss out on this opportunity, millennials!
Desperate for millennial talent, Germany launches ‘Opportunity Card’ giving migrants a year to look for a job – Between an aging population and an economy in seemingly perennial stagnation, Germany faces some major challenges. Could a visa aimed at attracting more young, hungry workers be the answer?
Germany is set to launch an “Opportunity Card” just in time for the summer, aimed at young foreign workers hoping either to eventually secure a long-term job or simply work in the country for a while.
That means sleeping in the office is the most healthy kind of sleep.
Have the Germans become lazy at work?
Germans have long been known for their diligence, sense of duty, reliability and productivity. Recent data suggests that Germans are working fewer hours. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
A glance at current OECD labor figures can be startling. In 2022, the average American worked over 1,800 hours per year, while the average German worked only 1,340 hours. However, labor market researcher Enzo Weber from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg, Germany, dismisses suggestions of the once-industrious Germans now only wanting to enjoy their sweet lives.
“Germany has a very high female labor force participation rate compared to most other countries,” Weber told DW, noting that the main difference to other countries was that about every second woman works part-time, which mathematically lowers the average annual working hours.
They didn’t do anything wrong.
Why can’t we just learn to live in peace?
Germany targets Indian students to address labor shortages – Germany looks to tap into international student talent to keep its engineering and IT sectors afloat.
Germany is grappling with a critical labor shortage and aging population, with projections indicating a deficit of seven million skilled workers by 2035.
With some 700,000 vacancies currently unfilled, Germany’s economic growth potential has dropped to about 0.7% now from around 2% in the 1980s, and is set to fall further to 0.5% if the country fails to resolve this problem, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has said, stressing the importance of migration in bridging this widening gap.
Engaging Germany’s Indian student population in the workforce may be part of the solution.
That’s why we desperately need a four-day work week.
To, uh, increase the hours worked each week? I don’t get it.
Germans work fewer hours over their lifetime than their European neighbours – In comparison to their European neighbours, people in Germany work fewer hours throughout their lifetime, a new study has revealed, but there is still a big appetite for a four-day week in the federal republic.
Germans work an average of 52.662 hours throughout their lives.
A new study from the Roman Herzog Institute has laid out the working habits of people in European countries. In comparison to their neighbours, Germans are on the clock for fewer hours throughout their lives, clocking in an estimated 52.662 hours of work, which means 39,3 years of their lives are solely occupied by work.
They’re just not as, well, robotic as their parents and grandparents used to be.
It’s time to replace them with the real thing.
As baby boomers retire, German businesses turn to robots – At machine parts producer S&D Blech, the head of the grinding unit is retiring. With Germany’s acute labour shortage leaving few candidates to take on the skilled but dirty and hazardous manual work, the company will replace him with a robot.
Other small and medium-sized companies are also turning to automation as the gradual exit from the workplace of Germany’s post-war “baby boom” generation tightens the labour squeeze.
Observing Hermann 