Just to post this interesting article. Let us be confident that the IT labour market (and the overall economy) are facing better times again, slowly but sure. This are also good signs for al GC-holders ans improve the prospects for a decent immigration law favouring highly skilled (and therefore favouring Germany)

http://www.handelsblatt.com/pshb/
fn/relhbi/sfn/buildhbi/cn/GoArt!200104,
204349,721148/SH/26e22357d305baf
052892ec115f2c3/depot/0/index.html

Hi

It is true that economy is picking up in the last months..
but "sad but true" reality of IT Sector is that it will never
be like as it was in 90s..

There will be new jobs arising but they will be mostly demanding
highly specialized professionals or consultant type jobs which require
mostly fluency in the local language of the country.. (those kind
of people never had a problem of job finding anyway..)

There will be also big immigration of IT jobs to the Low-Wage
countries..(especially India, in Europe also East-European Countries)
this tendency even can neutralize(or make worse) the IT jobs created
in high wage countries because of the picking up economy..

As a foreigner coming from east-europe, this is not a big deal
for me.. I can go back and work also in my own country.. and I even
should be happy because of this tendency.. but If I were a German
or American who is about to graduate from an IT field, I dont know
how I would feel then..

Hopefully, the mathematics of free market economy will work..
and there will be less students enrolling to the IT fields in
universities because of the tough IT job market they see in
front of them.. and the market will balance itself in 4-5
years time.. maybe..

Let's see what happens.. and hopefully with a job.. :-)

Regards

Lacrima

...

Doch auf neun offene Stellen der IT-Branche kommen im Schnitt zur Zeit immer noch rund 100 Bewerber. Und ihre Zahl wird in den nächsten Jahren weiter deutlich steigen: Derzeit gibt es in den IT-Fächern 122 990 Studierende (!! as i remember from last year statistics, there were only about 80.000 job places in whole Germany for IT-professionals, because of cutting costs by outsotcing and moving job places to east european countries i very doubt it that situation has improved here over last half-year), die auf den Arbeitsmarkt drängen werden.

...

„Ähnlich wie Wirtschaftswissenschaftler und Juristen finden IT-Fachleute deshalb nicht nur in der IT-Branche sondern auch in allen anderen Branchen ihren Arbeitsplatz.“

http://www.faz.net/s/RubEC1ACFE1EE274C81BCD3621EF555C83C/
Doc~E9B0503F597E24285ACE3BBD22CAD59E3
~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

Yesterdays Frankfurter Allgemeine - based on statistics collected by ZAV in Bonn *lol* ;)

Hi,

How many of these 122 990 Studierende do you think will be good professionals? How many of them will stay in the branch? If you are manager, are you going hire somebody only for his nice eyes? Owr job sounds attractive, but it isn't easy and is not for everybody. By the same reason I cannot be a musician.

Regards,
Plamen

Hi Lacrima,

i would just like to give an opinion on what you wrote "professionals or consultant type jobs which require mostly fluency in the local language of the country.. (those kind of people never had a problem of job finding anyway..)".

Since I was here, I did my best to be able to be proficient in German and I really do am, which is something very difficult you can ask for a person being in a foreign country and I do think that at this time, many of the GCs are proficient in German.

But I'm also jobless and i can tell you that it's not that easy to find a job nowadays for GCs, even proficient in German because other things are required and asked from them and this is related to the 5 years they have because for people like me, on these 5 years, it remains only a couple of months and it's quite difficult to find companies willing to hire you for a couple of months.

If it's a contract position for 6 months, then you got restrictions saying that you can't work as a freelancer or a contractor, but you need to get fully employed.

Then things start getting croocky...

Just a view on the actual IT situation for GCs down here nowadays.

D.

"How many of these 122 990 Studierende do you think will be good professionals? How many of them will stay in the branch? If you are manager, are you going hire somebody only for his nice eyes? Owr job sounds attractive, but it isn't easy and is not for everybody. By the same reason I cannot be a musician."

It depends. Therefore it would be nice to see a statistics how many of those 122 990 are studying in Universities. Just because Universities would not loose on the market bad professionals. Still i agree with you, all those guys will lack practice which we have. But, on the other hand, they have native German and it's somewhat easier for them to communicate with Germans because they are from the same society (here i would like to point out to a number of job proposals which have native German as a prerequisite - it's just a way to say that they want only German guy and in the same time avoid a possibility to be accused in discrimination *lol* ;)), they are young and it's possible to pay them a smaller salary (because they only finished their studies and therefore have very little experience). So if i were manager, had a good team of experienced IT-professionals and was looking for several more guys, i could consider a possibility to hire young natives that only finished their studies and put them under supervision of some older members from my team.

Another point is that a work permit is granted to GCs only during five years (and if you look in §6 Abs.3 IT-ArGV:

(3) Nach Erteilung der erstmaligen Arbeitserlaubnis können (!!!)weitere Arbeitserlaubnisse unabhängig von der Arbeitsmarktlage erteilt werden.

you will see that it is granted only because Germany wants to maintain a good face - but you know that everything has a limit and if situation on a job market drops below some limit, probably nobody anymore will think about maintaning a good face) and nobody knows what will happen after that. even if it will be allowed for GCs to apply for an ordinary work permit accordingly AAV 5.2, a check of labour market by employment office will be done and imagine the results of such a check when unemployment rate in IT is about 40%! do you think that officials in employment office will think about experience in such a case? when their job is to have a nice statistics regarding unemployment rate? i saw statistics about number of issued work permits in years 2001-2002, when situation on a labour market was better than now - a total number of issued work permits accordingly AAV 5.2 was about 1.000 per year - one thousand work permits for all white-collar employees in whole Germany!

Also i would like to point out that from a summer this year new countries join EU and by employment offices people from those countries will be considered as possible employees before any non-EU citizens.

I would like to ask for a correct understanding of my words: i am not trying to bring here bad news or present the news badly, i am just trying to estimate the situation correctly and am sharing with community here the results of such an estimation. Of course, it may be so that i am wrong - only time can tell that - and i myself would like to see that i am wrong; still i can not give away an estimate which i consider to be a wrong one only in order not to bring bad news.

"But I'm also jobless and i can tell you that it's not that easy to find a job nowadays for GCs, even proficient in German because other things are required and asked from them and this is related to the 5 years they have because for people like me, on these 5 years, it remains only a couple of months and it's quite difficult to find companies willing to hire you for a couple of months."

Even when couple of years are left, because in Germany people normally are hired for a long-time period; therefore a candidate is chosen during several months. Nobody wants to make the same job (choosing a new employee) in two years again, right? and nobody is sure that they will be able to have a GC holder after his five-years ticket is over. Moreover, up to this day only a lazy employer does not know what GC program is *lol* ;)

"If it's a contract position for 6 months, then you got restrictions saying that you can't work as a freelancer or a contractor, but you need to get fully employed."

True as well - normally people have corresponding restriction in their residence permit. And even in case when they do not have such a restriction in their residence permit (my case; just a mistake of immigration office), the employer knows that it is not a normal situation for a man with a limited residence permit -> therefore has doubts -> therefore chooses other guy who has an unlimited residence permit or german citizenship. And i would not say that he is wrong, because once officials find their mistake (which will happen as soon as i submit an application for a work permit for a freelancer position) they will make everything possible to correct it at my cost, which will most surely lead to a legal dispute. Which employer wants to get involved in such a mess? Surely, noone *lol*

As for a contractor position, there is a way to avoid a forbiddance to work as a contractor and contractor-companies know that way. But again, would you like to relocate to a new city two times per year at your own costs?

In einem Kernbereich des Gesetzes, der Arbeitsmigration, hat Rot-Grün deutliche Abstriche machen müssen. Das Punktesystem nach dem Vorbild etwa von Kanada und Australien ist vom Tisch, auch die von Rot-Grün geplante Aufhebung des generellen Anwerbestopps kommt mit Ausnahme von Spitzenkräften nicht. Eine Lockerung soll es ferner für Fachkräfte geben, die aus den neuen EU-Beitrittsstaaten kommen.

http://de.news.yahoo.com/040322/336/3y8h1.html

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I heard some bad news today: Siemens plans to fire 2500 employees :-(