Germany votes to bring in voluntary military service programme for 18-year-olds

To offer a bit of context, the same government just voted to raise current pensions at the expense of steep taxation hikes for current workers, made massive cuts to social services, and is now discussing military service.

This generation is rightfully feeling like they're getting a sore deal.

Not sure about refugees, but we are for sure in dire need of migration from skilled workers - health care sector is an example. It's still too complicated to migrate and on the other hand it's to still to difficult to remove criminals. The former government improved the situation, but did not fully solve the problem.

This is wrong. I used to work in cafes when I still lived in the city and two locations where close to hospitals and everyone I talked to complained about the risk of employing people with huge language barriers (mostly Ukrainians and Syrians from what I heard) in health related jobs because it has dire consequences if something gets lost in translation. No one of the higher ups cared and they just had to deal with while already being underpaid, overworked and exhausted.

There just isn't enough people who are local and want to do this job for this pay. This happens in Germany but also in my home country.

In Germany there is a whole industry around recruiting foreign nurses. I work in immigration and a few of my colleagues specialise in that. There are websites and initiatives just for that.

It will get worse. This population is aging.

I am continually befuddled that people unironically believe government policy should enable people to be paid below the market rate for their labor.

Raise their pay!

Just in case you don't know, Germany gets a minimum wage of 13.90€/h (~16.20 USD) in 2026, and 14.60€/h (~17 USD) in 2027.

Nurses aren't actually paid badly (they get paid above minimum wage), they usually don't complain/protest about wages. The problem stems from being understaffed and consequently bad working conditions. The core issues is hospitals being run like private businesses, which means they are not affording redundancy. It's a systemic problem with the medical system, which has little to do with wages, or immigration.

It doesn’t matter what the wages are, if there aren’t enough people willing to work for them, they aren’t high enough. That’s the core of labor markets.

Importing migrants just worsens the underlying problem. You destroy your own pipeline and eventually run out of migrants. Germany needs to pay more and provide a better work environment instead of just finding people desperate enough it seems like a good deal.

Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary. Crazy!

> Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary,

Where did you get this figure?

23.70€/h (~27.60 USD/h) apparently is the average wage for nurses. Working full-time, 38 hours per week, that's 46,831.2€ (54,492.34 USD) per year. Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Also typically there are 5-6 weeks of paid vacation per year.

https://www.allgaeuer-zeitung.de/pflege/durchschnittsgehalt-...