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.[...]
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.
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. 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.
Want to bet that the German response will be yet another expansion of the nanny state, ever more rules and higher taxes? And when the problem gets worse, want to bet that they will try the same thing again, expecting different results?
Lots of new German immigrants here in B.C.
We should be extending the welcome mat to these people.
They don't come here and expect you to change everything to suit them.
This country was one that had millions emigrate to other countries and found them.
Alot of western Canada was built by the Europeans. Especially agriculture.......alot were Germans
I work with a couple of new Germans. They are funny,industrious,and seem to be imbied with a lot of common sense. Oh. And they speak better English than most of us!
Time to get some Immigration office recruiters over there. We need these people in our economy. Write your MP.
In a working history that might span a half dozen pages, I have had many occasions to work with-and for- German people. I never found a dud.
I found them to be: Honourable. Professional. No time for headgames. And if I asked a question, they shared what they know with me. The German people represent an important part of the history of this country, and I always liked working with them.
I'm with you Gunny99, all the German immagrints I have met are willing to love and take care of their new country. They are very good citizens who are not here for the perks but here to make the nation better and stronger. They have witnessed the contrast between the Soviet Union and Democracy. People of Berlin will never forget the Berlin Airlift. They like and respect the nation of United States as much as I do.
All good, IMO.
Just after the Taliban were kicked out of Afghansistan I saw an interview with a German who opened a restauraunt there. He said it was almost impossible to start a new business in Germany - hence there he was in Afghanistan. You know your country is in bad shape when you lose your entrepeneurs to war torn Afghanistan.
So, the best and brightest are moving out and the marginally, if skilled at all, are filling up Germany. Stupid. The socialist Nanny States have turned the old historic definition of Displaced Persons on its head. This is happening in other parts of the EU too.
How stupid are our US immigration laws that we received legally only 13,245 well eduated/skilled Germans last year. That's one night's numbers on our southern border of unskilled uninvited illegals coming in.
The educated, skilled and honest are left to rot.
The socialists will gut a country's assets just like the Communists in time, they are just a little gentler and slower so the sheeple don't get too spooked.
Ed Minchau at June 10, 2007: Want to bet that the German response will be yet another expansion of the nanny state....
Not quite sure about that. News from my 80 year old aunt is that the government is cutting back on many of the benefits that they've been come accustomed to.
Personally, I'd like to know exactly how the German government can afford to pay my mother, who immigrated here in 1952 from Germany, to rejoin my father after 2 years of separation, a larger government & widower's pension than the Canadian government after both my mother & father spent the majority of their living & working days in this country.
There is something terribly wrong in Canada.
Hmmmm.... an influx of German automove engineers...GM, Ford...you got yer ears up on this? Or are you toally focused on migrating the indistry to Chinese production facilities like the good corporate citizens I know you to be ;-)
JM, there's something wrong in Germany too.
Please explain WHY the German government (that's to say, the German taxpayers) should pay ANY pension to people who have spent more than half a century and all their earning/taxpaying years in another country.
Isn't that the same as what many of us object to in third world immigrants coming to our Western democracies and taking maximum advantage of our generosity, our taxpayer-paid social services?
Penny wrote:
"So, the best and brightest are moving out and the marginally, if skilled at all, are filling up Germany"
Substitute Canada for Germany, and you're bang on...
Import a bunch of Bavarians and their weissbier and I'll be a happy man.
Here's hoping that those who come here (may there be lots and lots of them) leave behind the foolish liberal welfare state ideas that led to the decay of their homeland, and of their continent.
On another note... today the Globe and Mail "edited away" four separate posts on 3 separate topics I replied to on the forums. They weren't particularly aggressive, no capitals were used, I did not use any swear words, but all related to immigration-induced societal dysfunction.
Similarly, the Toronto Star has never posted the responses from their "Speak out" session on multicularlism - it just went into oblivion, presumably because they did not like the responses they got.
I am sure this comes as no surprise to people who visit SDA, but still a useful reminder that our regular media are more than just passive usful idiots. They are intentional and proactive participants in the destruction of Canadian society through multicultuarlism and immigration. They see it as part of their mission.
From my personal experience, a lot of the Germans leaving Germany are Mennonites who came from the Soviet Union. They were never accepted in Germany and they have found a very welcoming place to live here in Canada.
A lot of communities in rural in rural Manitoba are very active in recruiting these people to live in rural areas, because they hate the urban nature of modern Germany and feel quite at home in rural parts of our province.
We do not need Government officials to promote this process, we only need them to get out of the way and let this migration occur.
JM, that isn't something wrong with Canada, that's something wrong with Germany. Why should they be paying anything at all to someone in her situation? It's ludicrous.
Ed Münchau