There’s been an interesting debate going on in Germany lately.

The Germans don’t have enough skilled people to do all the computer and new media jobs that need to be done. I don’t know how such a technologically advanced country managed to completely miss the Internet revolution boat, but it did, and now everyone is frantic because everyone wants to get involved with “e-commerce" (because we all know that’s the only thing the Web is really good for) and no one knows how.

So Chancellor Schröder decided to allow several thousand short-term work permits to be issued to foreign computer experts. These people - mostly from India - are supposed to come here and do the jobs the Germans can’t do while teaching the Germans how to do it all themselves. After the Germans have learned everything they need to know, these foreigners are supposed to leave again and let the Germans get on with it.

If you’ve read previous journal entries, maybe you can imagine how this went over with the general public here. There was a huge outcry - mostly from people who I think don’t really know anything about the computer industry. Everyone started talking about all the unemployed Germans and wondering why foreigners should be coming here and taking jobs that Germans should do themselves (never mind the fact that this whole thing started because Germans can’t do these jobs themselves…).

A lovely slogan has gotten started: Kinder, nicht Inder. This means “children, not Indians” and refers to the idea that Germany should be investing in training young Germans to do this work instead of bringing in foreigners to do it.

The problem is that it’s way too late for that.

I’ve been going to lectures held by the “Freiburg Media Forum” lately. The lectures are given by people working with new media, and they have covered topics ranging from banner ads to child pornography on the Web. The last lecture I went to was held by a company that offers classes on things like networks, new media design and being a webmaster.

Jeremy and I were sitting in an audience of men wearing suits. After the company had presented their training programs, there was a question-and-answer session during which nearly every guy wearing a suit raised his hand and said, “I run such-and-such a company, and we need trained people now. Desperately. Not tomorrow, not next week, not a year from now when people have gone through your training program. We need these people yesterday. Where can I find people?”

There was no good answer to this question that night because there is no good answer to this question because there are no people here. Period.

And this is where the foreigners are supposed to come in. If I hadn’t been at that lecture that night, if I hadn’t heard first-hand from all these companies that are begging people to come work for them, then maybe I would find the foreigner idea a bit dubious. But when there is only one German available to do a job that 40 different companies need to have done - and need to have done “yesterday" - I personally don’t know what other option there is.

In its hesitancy to get involved with the Internet boom, Germany as done itself a big disservice, and now it has to pay. They can’t train people fast enough to be able to stay on top of things. And unlike America, most young people here haven’t taken the initiative to teach themselves anything about the Web in the past few years. So unlike America, there isn’t a wide base of cocky young computer whizzes raring to go in the business world.

There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which being that loads of people don’t have personal computers here, and it’s very expensive to go online. The Germans also have a little hang-up about autodidacticism, but that’s another story.

So, the foreigners are supposed to come get Germany out of the hole it’s gotten itself into, even though the Germans don’t want them to come. Maybe the Germans are afraid the foreigners won’t leave again. It’s not an entirely unfounded fear, I suppose, considering the “guest workers” from Turkey who were “invited" here to do the jobs the Germans didn’t want to do and then decided that Germany was nicer than Turkey. Of course, if the Germans lowered themselves to clean their own streets, maybe they wouldn’t have this problem - but that, too, is another story.

Anyway, considering the Kinder, nicht Inder attitude, I have to say that, if I were a computer expert from India, I don’t think I’d want come here in the first place. Maybe it sounds petulant, but if that’s the attitude I was facing, I would say they should figure it out for themselves. If the Germans can’t catch up with the rest of the world, it’s their own problem.

They’re already missing the boat. Maybe they should just stick to building cars.

Further reading…