Forget the immigrant with the cardboard bag. Thanks to widespread insecurity, limited growth opportunities and salaries stuck in the 90s, more and more of our graduates are leaving Italy today in search of opportunity. And one of the most popular destinations is definitely Germany. The “engine of Europe” recently went into recession, but has been a destination for our professionals for over 30 years. A phenomenon that makes us feel that our excellence and the development model we have chosen are not valued enough.
“Italians? They don’t believe German job offers.”
“Since there was no competition, I sent CVs all over my area. Only one nursing home responded to me to change it. They told me that the salary might not arrive on time and that they would pay 8 euros gross per hour per VAT number,” Giuseppe Maffione, a 31-year-old nurse from Bisceglie, tells Today.it. It was 2014, he had just graduated, but he immediately understood the trend.
He contacts a nursing home that recruits care staff in three major cities in Germany and decides to move. Today he speaks the language and works as a freelancer in various hospitals. In German it is called “Z”.Anditarbeit” and is equivalent to temporary work, which is also encouraged by many Italian cooperatives. The difference is the salary: here a nurse working this way earns more than three thousand euros net per month and can even reach five thousand euros. Because flexibility comes with a fee more.
“A public nurse earns 2,500 euros net per month, a thousand euros more than an Italian. But as a ‘temporary worker’ you can earn three times more, which helps a young person to build a future for himself,” he explains.
Giuseppe feels there is also room for business. He founded a company called “German Career Company” with other colleagues in order to encourage the immigration of Italian healthcare workers. But when he calls them, many people are surprised: “Many of those accustomed to salaries of 1,200 – 1,500 euros per month did not believe the offers offered to them: companies often also pay for accommodation, transportation and language courses. All this made them skeptical and unbelievable,” he tells us.
There is a shortage of approximately 150 thousand nurses in Italy, and many choose to emigrate to find better opportunities. In Germany, their number was over 4 thousand in 2021.
“Every year, 10 thousand nurses graduate and 10% of the places in nursing faculties are vacated,” says Francesco Sciscione, general secretary of Nursing Up to Today. “There is huge discontent with this profession, and that’s understandable.”
An Italian nurse earns 1500 euros net per month when hired, but much less if working as a temporary agency in cooperatives. And for many, wages and working conditions are unacceptable. “With 4,000 nurses retiring every year and many new graduates going abroad to make a future for themselves, at this rate public health will not last long,” Sciscione charges.
“As a doctor, I did not choose Germany just for economic reasons”
Yes, because there are also doctors who left the country. Nearly 13 thousand Italians live in Germany. Gian Marco Rizzuti, a Sicilian from Agrigento, is one of them. “When I asked for my thesis in 2012, the professor knew that I had no saint in heaven and entrusted me to one of his assistants. This only meant that I would graduate, but most likely I would not be able to enter a specialization.”
Gian Marco has the courage to make a choice that will change his life. He moved to Germany in 2014, obtained his C1 German language certificate, had his degree recognized and returned to the game.
In Germany, medical specialization is perceived as training within the scope of normal hospital medical activities. First he undergoes vascular surgery, then he changes. Today, he is completing his orthopedics and traumatology course at the German hospital where he works. An intern receives 2800 euros net, but his salary increases from year to year. You can even reach 4-5 thousand euros a month with overtime and medical staff. The salaries of interns in Italy are around 1600 euros.
However, comparisons with our country throughout his career are negative. Taking purchasing power (and gross amounts) into account, German doctors’ salaries are over $80 thousand per year higher than those of Italian doctors, at least according to the OECD’s latest estimates. Moreover, even estimates of the cost of living point to parameters only slightly higher than in Italy, at least when it comes to consumer goods. To get an idea, you can consult the Numbeo page for Germany (online consumer prices database of user reviews). Below we have presented a small table of the average price of consumer products.
To give a more appropriate example, we looked at rents. A studio apartment outside the historical center of a typical Italian city costs around 600 euros, in Germany it costs just over 700 euros. The difference increases slightly if we consider large cities such as Berlin or Munich, but only when compared to Rome. Rental costs in Milan are slightly lower than in the Bavarian capital and higher than in Berlin.
But of course the difference in pay is not the only reason to stay: “There is dynamism here, there are also career opportunities, there is also space for social demands. Doctors have always stood up for their rights, this has only been seen in Italy in recent years, and this has also been seen in Italy .” There are real career possibilities – then of course I miss my hometown, but now is not the time to go back,” Gianmarco tells Today.it.
“I asked my mother for money for the last time and decided to change”
There is always a trigger that triggers the decision to leave. The request of 37-year-old Mattia De Bella Iovita from Teramo is a simple one: “I was 27 years old and I found myself asking my mother for money to go out in the evening. There I said to myself: this is not possible, there is something that does not work here.”
He has a diploma and a master’s degree in advertising communications, but he makes ends meet in Italy as best he can. Then decide. On the advice of a friend, he moved to Germany’s Nordrhein Westphalia region, where approximately 6 thousand teachers were sought.
Mattia senses this opportunity, but the process of getting there is long. He starts from scratch and does everything from bartender to bouncer. However, this time there is a state supporting him. “The equivalent of our citizens’ income works great here. The state pays for language courses, provides you with income, helps with rent and gives you concrete opportunities to find a job. The reason for this is simple: the more workers there are, the more workers there are.” taxes are collected.”
Today he teaches Italian, art and English at a secondary school and earns more than twice as much as an Italian teacher: 3,400 euros net per month. “We also carry out secretarial duties – he tells Today.it – but one thing needs to be understood: public servants are respected here, because they are the ones who move the State forward, something that does not happen here. And it’s a shame because, to me, Italian The quality of the school is second to none.” Education in our country continues thanks to the work of nearly 200 thousand temporary workers. The state saves more than 2 billion euros every year by not hiring them. Public employees are often seen as just an expense item, and the consequences of this can also be seen in the children’s sector.
Yes, because aside from the dramatic shortage of kindergartens, Italy is understaffed by thousands of teachers and educators, and as a recent RomaToday survey highlights, municipalities often have to hire even unqualified staff. And qualified people who decide to immigrate to Germany, for example, encounter better conditions. On the Germitalia website, job offers for these figures start from 3 thousand Euros gross per month, and language courses and accommodation are also included in the pre-training period.
After all, teachers are very important for Berlin. Policies aimed at combating the birth rate have been implemented in Germany since the early 2000s, and they are working. But in Italy the decline in births is becoming increasingly dramatic. Yet another symptom of a “disease” that has been going on for over 30 years.
Source: Today IT
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
