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Europe

German brain drain at highest level since 1940s

2007-06-01

One more reason why Europe is screwed.

For a nation that invented the term "guest worker" for its immigrant labourers, Germany is facing the sobering fact that record numbers of its own often highly-qualified citizens are fleeing the country to work abroad in the biggest mass exodus for 60 years.

Figures released by Germany's Federal Statistics Office showed that the number of Germans emigrating rose to 155,290 last year - the highest number since the country's reunification in 1990 - which equalled levels last experienced in the 1940s during the chaotic aftermath of the Second World War. The statistics, which also revealed that the number of immigrants had declined steadily since 2001, were a stark reminder of the extent of the German economy's decline from the heady 1960s when thousands of mainly Turkish workers flocked to find work in the country.

Leading economists and employers say the trend is alarming. They note that many among Germany's new breed of home-grown "guest workers" are highly-educated management consultants, doctors, dentists, scientists and lawyers. OECD figures show that Germany is near the top of a league of industrial nations experiencing a brain drain which for the first time since the 1950s now exceeds the number of immigrants.

Import lots of poorly-trained folks from North Africa and the Middle East, and export your home-grown talent. Sure recipe for success.

Stephanie Wahl, of the Institute for Economics, based in Bonn, said that those who are leaving Germany are mostly highly motivated and well educated. "Those coming in are mostly poor, untrained and hardly educated," she added.

Fed up with comparatively poor job prospects at home - where unemployment is as high as 17 per cent in some regions - as well as high taxes and bureaucracy, thousands of Germans have upped sticks for Austria and Switzerland, or emigrated to the United States.

The elites can't quite understand it: why would ambitious, smart people want to stay aboard a sinking ship?

Yesterday, the country'swoes were underscored by a report which disclosed that areas of unemployment-wracked eastern Germany were populated by a "male-dominated underclass susceptible to far right ideology" because of a dramatic 25 per cent exodus of young women aged 18 to 29.

More than 18,000 Germans moved to Switzerland last year. The US was the second most popular destination with 13,245, followed by Austria with 9,309.

Switzerland already has a resident German population of 170,000. Its presence has even provoked a xenophobic backlash in the country's tabloid press.

Even though a third of the country is German speaking.

Earlier this year, the Swiss newspaper Blick ran an anti-German campaign which spoke of a "German invasion" and quoted readers who claimed they found the German immigrants to be "arrogant and rude". Many immigrants, however, say the benefits of lower taxes and pay up to three times higher than at home far outweigh the occasional xenophobic outburst.

The current exodus hardly fits in with the official view of the German economy, which is said to be "booming". Although jobless figures for May were reported to be marginally up yesterday, Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition government of conservatives and Social Democrats has taken credit for a steady 13-month decline in the country's unemployment to below four million.

However, the gradual economic upturn has so far failed to halt an exodus of the country's well-trained. Thomas Bauer, a labour economist from Essen, was scathing about Germany's employment conditions. "Germany is certainly not attractive when compared to other countries in Europe," he said. "The taxes are too high, the wages are too low and feelings of jealousy towards high-income earners is widespread. This is a special deterrent to the highly qualified."

Posted by:Steve White

#10 We'll trade ya all our arabs for 50,000 highly educated, exceptionally motivated Germans.

That's a sweet deal for you.

Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-06-01 08:50

#9 It must really tick them off that America is such a popular destination.

This kind of kills the "Why do they hate us?" meme, doesn't it?

Al

Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-06-01 08:39

#8 We'll take your talented, educated and motivated masses. The rest of you can stay in your self-made hell.

Posted by: DarthVader 2007-06-01 08:24

#7 Time to re-brand. Change the name to Turkmany.

Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-06-01 07:46

#6 Perhaps they should build a wall around the country. They'd need to put landmines around it, towers with machine guns, and have trained dogs to hunt anyone attempting escape. I think it's simple, don't you?

Posted by: Eric Jablow 2007-06-01 07:41

#5 feelings of jealousy towards high-income earners is widespread.

This is nothing new. When we lived there in the early '90s, Mr. Wife's company rented us a little 150 square meter house (well under 2000 sq.ft.) with a small garden (I literally cut the lawn with my kitchen scissors -- a 3 sq. ft. patch). When trailing daughter #1 came of age, we sent her to a local German preschool. Some of the mothers would not let their children come over to play when they discovered we lived in the entire house. For perspective, that village had one of the highest average incomes in all of Germany; one of the neighbors was a titled graefin, another raised the family flag every morning when she was in residence... and a number of the locals in the American Women's Club playgroup were married to corporate presidents, CEOs and suchlike immensities. At the time, Mr. Wife was definitely a corporate peon. When I got a very used little BMW to drive around in, I was twitted for taking my husband's car. Husbands in management drove only BMWs or Mercedes, you see; their wives drove only VW something-or-others (I don't remember which one, but not the Beetle), the only choice being the colour. It felt to me almost like the Medieval sumptuary laws, where each class of society wore prescribed materials and styles of clothing, hats and shoes, and jewelry, to avoid overwheening pride and extravagance of appearance.

Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-01 07:29

#4 Pro-
I've heard insanity defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Posted by: Glenmore 2007-06-01 07:28

#3 Fed up with comparatively poor job prospects at home - where unemployment is as high as 17 per cent in some regions - as well as high taxes and bureaucracy, thousands of Germans have upped sticks for Austria and Switzerland, or emigrated to the United States.

Hillary '08
It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society.

Being a socialist means never having to learn. Repeating the same mistake over and over and over again.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-06-01 07:03

#2 High "success fines" and a government committed to envy politics more like.

Wonder why the successful leave, it's almost like they feel persecuted or something....

Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2007-06-01 05:21

#1 High taxes, low pay, and hatred towards the well-off: sounds like an ideal Socialist state. Why on Earth would people be leaving it?

Posted by: gromky 2007-06-01 02:56

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