The Study About Germans

There is this study that has been done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) over this idea of east and west Germany being different about foreigners.  Focus (the German news magazine) discussed in a short piece today.

One of every two folks in eastern Germany says that the region is good for migrants to move into, and feel a part of the community.

In the western part of Germany, the same study says four out of five Germans would say the same thing.

Why the difference, according to the study authors?  They say that Germans in West Germany (1945 to 1990)....had guest workers and came to accept them.  East Germans (DDR) never had such a program and were never seeing that many foreigners in there region.

It is a fair short piece, and I sat for a while after having read it.  Some of the facts are absolute in nature.  But I also pondered upon the simple fact that since the Wall came down and Germans were hyped up about a united country....is it all blended together now and one single country.  Unemployment?  Well.....no.

You can go back to 2015, and see the trend.  In the western side of the country in 2015....unemployment was near 5.4-percent.....while it was closer to 9-percent in eastern Germany.  It's been generally that way since 1990.

There's a great chart at the Economist which shows the serious nature of this from 1990 to around 2010.  Unemployment at times, was up to 20-percent in the east.

In some regions of eastern Germany.....folks will tell you that with youth employment, it's dismal and just not getting better. 

So if you had some jobs to appear.....do you want any competition for those jobs in eastern Germany?  I'd be the first one to tell you that throwing more people into the mix....would be a serious blunder.

The folks with the study?  They tactfully avoided that subject. 

I'll even go to this extent....there's a serious difference in job openings between most of Germany....and the Baden-Wuerttemberg/Bavaria/Hessen region.  Bavaria has a number of districts where the locals can boast a 2-percent rate of unemployment. 

Simply throwing some numbers out there and pretending unemployment rates don't matter?  It's kinda silly.