Tag Archives: employment
Film Review: The Swissmakers (Die Schweizermacher)
Posted in conjunction with the course Multicultural Germany in fall semester 2015. Author: Karla Palos The 1978 film Die Schweizermacher (The Swissmakers) is a good cop/bad cop comedy directed by Rolf Lyssy which dramatizes the bureaucratic exchanges between immigration officials and … Continue reading
German-Chinese Business Communication: An Interview with Anne Schreiter
MGP research apprentice Yiran Wang recently interviewed Anne Schreiter, a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley German Department. Anne received her Ph.D. in Organization Studies and Cultural Theory with a focus on Sociology from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. … Continue reading
Film Review: “Brudermord” (Fratricide)
As part of the Multicultural Germany undergraduate seminar at UC Berkeley, students reviewed recent German films relating in various ways to topics of migration, multiculturalism, and contemporary German identity. Melissa Carlson reviewed Yilmaz Arslan’s 2005 film “Brudermord”: Fratricide is a drama with … Continue reading
Multicultural Germany Class: Week 2, Socialist Friends – Part 2
This post is part of a series in which students reflect on their discussions in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week two students have written summaries of the past week’s sessions. This is the second post, written … Continue reading
Multicultural Germany Class: Week 2, Socialist Friends – Part 1
This post is part of a series in which students reflect on their discussions in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week two students have written summaries of the past week’s sessions. The first is by Brittany Scott: The first … Continue reading
Multicultural Germany Class: Week 1, Guest Workers
This post is the first in a series that will give weekly summaries of the discussions taking place in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” Each week’s discussions will be summarized by a different student in the course; this week’s … Continue reading
Berkeley Student Research Report: Foreign Students in Germany
A research report by UC Berkeley undergraduate student and MGP participant Yiran Wang: As the unemployment rate in Germany has dropped, the number of unoccupied positions in the job market has increased. A recent report shows that nearly 500,000 jobs … Continue reading
Immigrant Students and Foreign Students in Germany
In some urban part of Germany, the proportion of students with migration backgrounds is up to 90 percent. However, few of them will achieve college degree so that they are less confident compared with native German students. The project “Dialog … Continue reading
Reuters: Germany Becoming More Open to Immigrants
Student News Report by Yiran Wang: According to the news agency Reuters, Germans are becoming more inclusive toward immigrants. In past decades, Germany was known for its strict immigration laws and unfriendly attitudes towards immigrants. Due to unemployment in the 1970s oil crisis, the … Continue reading
“Auslaender sollen unsere alten Leute pflegen” (“Foreigners should tend to our old people”)
The article “Auslaender sollen unsere alten Leute pflegen” (“Foreigners should tend to our old people”) talks about how German nurses are calling for help from abroad. The number of skilled nurses is too low for the current conditions. This is … Continue reading
German State Appoints First Minister of Turkish Origin
Aygül Özkan, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party, was recently appointed the minister of social affairs. Özkan was born in Hamburg and is the daughter of Turkish guest workers who arrived in Germany in the 1960s. Özkan … Continue reading
Court Rules that East Germans are not an Ethnic Group
This Der Spiegel article follows up on the Stuttgart labor court case charging a West German company with discriminating against a woman born in the former GDR. The court ruled that East Germans are not an ethnic group, a conclusion … Continue reading
Court to Decide if East Germans are Ethnic Group
This week in Stuttgart a labor court will decide on the issue of East German ethnic identity after a East German born woman filed a anti-discrimination lawsuit against a West German window manufacturer for rejecting her application on the basis … Continue reading
Gender Gap in Germany
This article highlights the growing wage gap between women and men in Germany. According to this article women on average earn about 23% less than their male colleagues. This number is 5% higher than EU’s average, and somewhat higher than … Continue reading
Germany’s Record Debt In 2010
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was approved for the borrowing of 80.2 billion Euros ($109 billion) for 2010, making it the highest borrowing figure in record. The government blames this accumulating debt on the global downfall of the economy. However, there … Continue reading
WWII Compensation: Ghetto Laborers Still Waiting for German Pensions
Germany passed a Ghetto Pension Law in 2002 that would give a small amount of money to Jews who held steady jobs in concentration camps, in order to “close a gap in the country’s Nazi-era compensation.” However, over 90 percent … Continue reading
Böhmer calls for Germany to recognize foreign credentials
Integration commissioner Maria Böhmer has called for a concentrated effort to provide the 1.9 million foreigners in Germany who receive welfare with better career prospects. Aside from suggesting that immigrants need to be more willing to integrate she recognizes that … Continue reading
Bewerber-Diskriminierung
This was an interesting article in the online addition of Der Spiegel where students sent fictitious resumes to German companies under a Turkish and a German alias. The study proved that discrimination existed in the job market regardless of qualification, … Continue reading
Did German Officers violate the terms of their service?
This article addresses the issue of Germany’s federal police officers not complying with the laws in Iran. These men allegedly had affairs with an Iranian woman. This is not only embarrassing for Germany, but life threatening for the woman, and … Continue reading
Gentrification in Hamburg – Can Ikea Save a Run-Down Neighborhood?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,673016,00.html This article illustrates the views of those for and against the construction of an Ikea complex to replace the dying Grosse Bergstrasse shopping center in Hamburg’s Altona district. Those in favor of the multicultural company believe that the revenue … Continue reading