[devdude1337]

Freelance developer from Germany here. There is a significant drop in projects and a slowdown in permanent offerings, but no layoff wave like in the US. Demand is still high but due to the current recession most companies delay hiring for now.

From my point of view there is also a skill-missmatch in Germany. While firms look for the usual most modern tech stacks, workforce is often conservative, staying years or even decades at one company with outdated technology. Hiring non-EU citizens is almost impossible because of the bureaucracy.

So, in Germany the situation is complicated and different from the US.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Hiring non-EU citizens is almost impossible because of the bureaucracy.

We want to water down the already mediocre wages even more? If you can't find workers across the whole 448 million EU block willing to work for you, you're doing something wrong.

[devdude1337]

What makes you think that developers from Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, Egypt or the US would demand so much lower wages? I helped companies onboarding people from all over the globe, and every developer (at least those we met and signed) know their worth.

[jamil7]

I'm also a freelance developer living in Germany. I've been lucky enough to be on a fairly large, ongoing project for the last year, so I haven't been affected. But new project inquiries/leads have basically dropped to zero for me.

From work, to housing, it feels like the population is in "wait and see" mode.

[askonomm]

Most of the remote jobs I see from Germany also hire only those who live in Germany, so it seems to me that Germans don't even want EU citizens, just Germans.

[FirmwareBurner]

That's in every EU country for tax and social security reasons, they want you to also be a tax resident there because that dicatates your tax, labor laws and employee benefits meaning it's familiar and predictable for the company.

There's no EU wide citizenship, employee regulations and tax liability for employees but are local for each country. They don't want you earning money in one country but spemding it and taxing it in another.

This is where the EU is weaker than the US and will keep missing the mark in software.

[gituliar]

In EU since Jul'23 cross-border remote work is free of extra taxes and similar obligation if done up to 50% abroad. One can come to Germany for 3 days and come back to his country to work for 2 days remotely and spend weekend.

More here https://socialsecurity.belgium.be/en/internationally-active/...

[devdude1337]

Many managers I got to know have a hard time expressing themselves in English properly.

They fear miscommunication and the administrative work connected to non-German employees.

[GrumpySloth]

Most of German job offers I’ve seen require proficiency in the German language. That’s unlike offers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or Israel, where you’re only required to speak English. Nothing else is ever even suggested in those offers. My sister works in Germany and says that while Germans are pretty easy to talk to in English on the street, in a shop etc., they’re reluctant to do so in a work context and she gets irritated looks when she only speaks at B1 level. Germany is pretty uniquely hostile to foreigners in that regard. I suspect that the requirement you’re speaking of is set up mainly to filter out those who don’t speak German very well.

[drinchev]

Note that we also had COVID and shifted to remote gigs in Germany. This means that we compete with people located in smaller cities or even villages which probably have a pretty good pay rate bump.

[oytis]

What is the bureaucracy in question? Required salary for the blue card is really low now, especially for tech workers, so basically you just go ahead and hire as I understand.

[nicbou]

I run a website about this for a living.

1. It takes forever to get a residence permit and get permission to start working.

2. It's increasingly difficult to find housing, which is required for the residence permit.

3. The bureaucracy is notoriously slow and outdated, and full of catch-22 situations. It's especially apparent when you need everything at once.

4. The language barrier makes everything harder.

In other words, if you meet all the requirements, you're looking at a multi-month slog before you're finally allowed to start working. People sometimes lose their job before they start due to the immigration office delays.

[devdude1337]

You can of course hire a contractor and tax them as usual business costs. But for a permanent position the employee needs a European Social ID, a Tax ID, health care account and a bank account. All this is needed before you can pay the employee’s first loan.