Politically, things in Germany for the past decade have been heated up on the subject of child care (KITA is the program in Germany). This week, ARD (public TV, Channel One) picked up the topic and noted an interesting observation....that the various thousands of KITA programs going on, in villages, towns and cities.....are fully funded now, but they can't find enough people to work in them.
What the experts say is that they (roughly three-quarters of the operations) are missing out on the adequate number of personnel.
Parts of the problem? What is suggested is that frequent illness pops up as a problem for employees.....and just plain regular absenteeism.
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People in the US send their children to child care when they are sick and the illness spreads like wildfire. My sister is a school nurse and she gets sick from the kids a lot of the time.
Claudia's not wrong. You pretty much need to pick your kid up wearing a hazmat suit at most Kita's here also.
It's such low paid work, and a case of higher class women offloading child rearing to lower class women. With all the progressive strides that feminism has made, it's tend to do them by exploiting women of minorities.
The fact that we don't pay a fair livable wage for the job means that politician turn around and say "No German will do this work - let's lower the standards and bring in immigrants". Whereas when you actually would pay a fair wage for the work done, there would be plenty of people lining up to do the job. Exactly the same as nursing. They get paid half of what they actually deserve given the conditions that they work in here.
Not that I want criticism over it....but KITA positions are probably the last job left in Germany where job experience isn't mandated, and other than a first-aid course and a background check...virtually anyone can do it. Probably 90-percent of Germans wouldn't be interested to be around kids eight hours a day, and stress would be a major problem.
But the pay-scale is the other end of this. The general pay-spectrum (going way beyond KITA) has been screwed up for three decades. People have talked about this, the lack of pay-raises, continuing inflation, and housing costs.
Half of the support for open-door asylum/migration involves keeping pay at the low-end and the 'new' Germans appreciating a low-start wage. It's comical in some ways, but people are awakening to this issue and it's going to trigger more political turmoil.
Actually you do need qualifications and part of the studies is placements. Full time about 2 years, part time about 5.
I think that the pay spectrum issues started almost back in the 70's after the oil crises, when prices didn't fall back down as they should have. That was the start of the growing gap between the people who can afford to live, and those who can't. Obviously it went radically bad up to when capitalism died in 2008, but then they frantically used socialism to bail out the banks. I'm still waiting for the banks to pay us all back. And I'll die waiting.
Do you really believe people are waking up to the fact that they'll turn away a trauma surgeon from Syria, because they're not up to German standards, yet take an electrician who was 'qualified' at 12 (one of my classmates in the language course).
There's definitely protectionism, but as usual it's the wealthy waging a class war against the poor. I think that whatever distraction they can find, they'll use to make sure it's never a big issue or discussion point.
In several language classes in 2015/2016, I came across various non-Germans who had troubles being recognized for their jobs and education. Best example...a young Afghan lady (mid-20s) with a four-degree in mathematics. Job-Center could do nothing with her, and were advising to go and spend four more years in a German university. Other than being a teacher's helper, that was as far as she could go.
I knew a Syrian with a petroleum engineer degree, who wasn't getting any help from the Job-Center, and then bumped into a German company who were absolutely desperate for someone in this background.
I met a Ghanaian guy who'd helped to run a grocery operation back in his home-country (no-degree)...late 20's. In the last month or two of language classes, his German boss offered a full-time job as a shift-supervisor at the local grocery. It hinged on him passing the test, and the integration class.
On the other side of the coin, there are tens of thousands of young men who showed up and their resume is a two-line situation....where they ran their uncle's fruit stand. Other than help at McDonalds....their possibilities are limited.
For a lot of these people, there is significant enthusiasm for the German economy and stability. Optimism is helpful. As for protectionism, this is the dark corner of the situation, and you can't do much but wonder how this will all work out.
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