The dark side of Germany's jobs "miracle".

[former wesleyan]

Where does the Gastarbeiter ( German for Turk ) fit into all this ?

[Odyessus]

This article below is a long one. Here are some salient points.

1. Pay in Germany, which has no nationwide minimum wage, can go well below one euro an hour, especially in the former communist east German states. "I've had some people earning as little as 55 cents per hour," said Peter Huefken, the head of Stralsund's job agency.

2. While wage inequality used to be as low in Germany as in the Nordic countries, it has risen sharply over the past decade. Low wage workers earn less relative to the median in Germany than in all other OECD states except South Korea and the United States.

3. The number of full-time workers on low wages - sometimes defined as less than two thirds of middle income - rose by 13.5 percent to 4.3 million between 2005 and 2010, three times faster than other employment, according to the Labour Office.

4. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows low-wage employment accounts for 20 percent of full-time jobs in Germany compared to 8.0 percent in Italy and 13.5 percent in Greece.

5. Critics say Germany's reforms came at a high price as they firmly entrenched the low-wage sector and depressed wages, leading to a two-tier labor market. New categories of low-income, government-subsidized jobs - a concept being considered in Spain - have proven especially problematic. Some economists say they have backfired. There is little to stop employers paying "mini-jobbers" low hourly wages given they know the government will top them up and there is no legal minimum wage.

6. Employers have little incentive to create regular full-time jobs if they know they can hire workers on flexible contracts. One out of five jobs is a now a "mini-job," earning workers a maximum 400 euros a month tax-free. For nearly 5 million, this is their main job, requiring steep publicly-funded top-ups.

7. International Labour Organization's Ernst Weber [wonderful surname!] says Germany can only hope that other European countries do not emulate its own wage deflationary policies too closely, as demand will dry up: "If everyone is doing same thing, there won't be anyone left to export to."

Source:
Insight: The dark side of Germany's jobs miracle | Reuters

Interesting post, but I don't get the the surname joke.

"Ernst Weber [wonderful surname!]"

What's so strange or wonderful about "Weber"?

[Impartial_Eclipse]

Where does the Gastarbeiter ( German for Turk ) fit into all this ?

Raus! Raus!

At the rate things are going, they might as well off in Turkey, Morocco or wherever as in most European countries.

[Toland]

Where does the Gastarbeiter ( German for Turk ) fit into all this ?

There are practically no Gastarbeiter left. Just Turks and their (mostly) Turkish children, against whom there are a lot of conscious and unconscious chauvinisms.

Funnily enough, the only place where "they're taking our jobs" is heard is where there are no Turks and no jobs.

The day the idiots realise that the lack of jobs has nothing to do with immigration (where there is none) will be the day they start recovering from years of poverty-stricken communism.

[Impartial_Eclipse]

Interesting post, but I don't get the the surname joke.

"Ernst Weber [wonderful surname!]"

What's so strange or wonderful about "Weber"?

It's a reference on my part to Max Weber, the 19th century German sociologist and economist whose theories linked the relative wealth of Germany and other north European countries to what he referred to as the Protestant Work Ethic.

I just thought it quite..... apposite to the current discussion.

[Toland]

Interesting post, but I don't get the the surname joke.

"Ernst Weber [wonderful surname!]"

What's so strange or wonderful about "Weber"?

Look 'im up on Wkipedia.

Max Weber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Toland]

Raus! Raus!

At the rate things are going, they might as well off in Turkey, Morocco or wherever as in most European countries.

They mostly come from Turkey, although there were also Italians, Spanish and Greeks, who have become practically assimilated.

[Odyessus]

It's a reference on my part to Max Weber, the 19th century German sociologist and economist whose theories linked the relative wealth of Germany and other north European countries to what he referred to as the Protestant Work Ethic.

I just thought it quite..... apposite to the current discussion.

Fair enough, but the name is quite common in Germany. It's hardly a startling coincidence.

[Impartial_Eclipse]

Fair enough, but the name is quite common in Germany. It's hardly a startling coincidence.

.....which is why I was careful to use the word "apposite".

[zippo222]

Where does the Gastarbeiter ( German for Turk ) fit into all this ?

Guest workers. I was one back in the eighties.