Successes in your career in Germany

Yes, I feel the need to share my experience in Germany. First of all I am a recognized expert in my field in the U.S. I have consulted with the U.S. Government on several projects. I also had a successful business for over 20 years with 17 employees. I moved to Germany to work in my field. I was hired by a company in Munich to come there and run their operations. They signed a visa application for me stating they would hire me full-time as an employee so that is how I got my German Visa. They stated that they could not find a qualified German to do the specialty work that I do. So after I arrived in Germany, this company said that instead of employing me, they wanted me to get my Gewerbe so that they could hire me as a subcontractor and they told me that was better for me, so I got the Gewerbe. Then I found out later that, as a foreigner, I was not allowed to have a Gewerbe, which means you have your own business, for the first two years that I was in Germany. I told this company that they were paying me illegally and that they needed to hire me as an employee to be legal, but they simply said "no, we pay you as a subcontractor. That is fine and legal".  I went to two different attorneys and both of them said that what the company was doing was illegal. Finally after over one year, I went to the Ausländerbehörde and told them what happened. They immediately took my visa and told me I had 3 months to find a job as an employee or leave Germany. This company lied to me and did not follow the German law, which says they have to hire me because they signed for my Visa. They could have hired me, then fired me if they wanted, but they wanted me to work for them, but did not want to pay the taxes and benefits as required by German law so they lied about that and never legally hired me. That is my experience in my career in Germany. I now work for the U.S. Government as a recognized expert in my field. I was hired immediately to relocate to the U.S. and head my department. ***

Deciduous: I am very sorry for your situation. There are bad apples anywhere and you seem to have found one as "employer" in Germany. You are right that readers of this forum should hear such stories, too, and thus your post will stay. However, your comments generalising from this (limited) experience towards all Germans are unwarranted, hateful and thus I will ask the moderators to edit them out (according to the forum rules).
As basically everywhere in this world, there is a large majority of honest, open and friendly people (and organisations) in Germany. If frustration caused by a few makes you close your mind for the many others, it is you who loses - not Germany or the Germans. Therefore, for your own benefit, I hope you can with time overcome your bad memories and see this country with reasonable eyes again.
Menwhile, good luck back in your home country!

Deciduous: it was unfortunate and hard time you faced. But it is impressive that you struggled till the end. Bravo!
Beppi: How one can avoid this illegal hiring. There are employers who get advantage of unawareness of job seekers.

Zia Sheikh,  Thank you for your comment. Indeed, I struggled through and took the higher path in not legally pursuing that German employer.
Beppi, there was no generalizing in my comments. ***

My experience in Germany and dealing with Germans is not "limited". I lived in Germany for a total of eight years.

ZiaSheikh: There are some morally dubious employers in Germany, like in many other places.
To avoid problems, it helps to have a good and clear contract guiding the relationship. Unawareness is not a good (or legally valid) excuse and it is up to you to become aware.
From his description (and eventual not winning the legal case) I assume Deciduous did not. (But without knowing all relevant details of his case, it is of course impossible to tell for sure.)
You should have any employment contract you are offerd checked by a German lawyer or at least a German (native speaking) friend who is well versed in labour law.

Well explained thx for tips ☺

As a performer I belong to a group in Germany known as Freie Berufe or free professions that don’t need a Gewerbeschein. This also includes doctors, lawyers, tax advisors, farmers, scientists and computer programmers. I mention this more for others reading here to know that not everyone or every profession has the same requirements in Germany.

The information I find for non-EU citizens to get a Gewerbeschein so that they can start a business or self-employment says that they must apply and of course have any require certifications for a specific job. I have not found any mention of a min. 2 years residency. So I don’t know if this is an unofficial expectation or what. Generally someone staring a business or self-employment must pay the value added tax in advance on a monthly basis for the initial 2 years unless they have an acceptance from the tax authorities that they will likely have an income under 17,500 Euros/year and thus be free from collecting value added tax. So I am not sure on what basis that you (deciduous) were not allowed a Gewerbeschein.

But there are also laws that disallow this very practice of forcing one to become self-employed to continue working for one employer since it is basically a way for them to avoid paying their part of the social security fees for an employer. And this is independent of if the person is an immigrant or not. They can theoretically be punished but what really happens depends on the prosecutor’s office and courts. What it is unlikely to bring is that they will respond by restoring one as an employer since from their position, you have ratted them out.

Hopefully such behavior gets punished so companies think twice about attempting it. But as a victim of such a practice I doubt you will see any kind of a fair settlement without a lawsuit, something from my experience can take years at great cost and still not result in a good outcome. Judges are overworked in Germany and often seem uninformed or uninterested in the relevant laws. Even a theoretically open and close case can go either way. One might think it is otherwise in Germany but when your opponent or his lawyer is a golf buddy of the presiding judge then you have little chance of success.

It’s even possible that your problem to get a Gewerbeschein was specifically based on that they saw that it was to continue to work for a single employer. Allowing this and you to then proceed to work for this company would have been contrary to the law; but the up-shot is that you end up as much, or more so, disadvantaged by the decision as them although the purpose of the law is your protection.
Here are 2 links in German about requirements for foreigners to start a business in Germany:
https://www.rostock.ihk24.de/starthilfe … er/2647230https://deutsch-werden.de/de/gewerbe-an … eu-buerger

The law in Germany states that any foreigner, during his/her first two years in Germany, must be employed full-time as an employee and is not allowed to start their own business. That is the law, as explained to me by the ausländerbehörde/Landratsamt in Munich. So my local office gave me the Gewerbe, then the Landratsamt told me this two-year law. It was probably different when you entered Germany years ago, but that is the law now. I am not interested in attorneys in the least as they are agents of the system and therefore will do little to nothing to benefit me in this case. I simply moved on. My job pays three times what they paid in Germany as I am an expert in my field in the states. Very sad that Germany is shooting itself in the foot with regard to wanting more qualified professionals, but them not recognizing their qualifications simply because they are not on German paper. I have done more research on this and it is not isolated to my field. It is widespread. More laws is not the answer. More humanity is.

deciduous wrote:

Very sad that Germany is shooting itself in the foot with regard to wanting more qualified professionals, but them not recognizing their qualifications simply because they are not on German paper.

Maybe you find this to be sad, but this is the way it is. Documents have to be translated into the language of the country that you work in, which is the case in Austria, France, Spain just to name a few. Sometimes the qualifications are not recognized, this is due to different countries, having different standards.

Does not matter if you translate the documents or not. The qualifications are rarely recognized. This is a problem in Europe and it is growing. Germany needs to look at this situation harder. I actually saw a documentary on this specific topic where the Germans simply refuse to recognize documents, certifications, no matter where they are from, even when the party in question was a PHD. Very sad for both parties involved.

deciduous wrote:

The law in Germany states that any foreigner, during his/her first two years in Germany, must be employed full-time as an employee and is not allowed to start their own business.

This is not a general law, and I do know several foreigners who did this successfully.
Maybe yours was a special case (or you were just advised wrongly)?

Officials are sometimes wrong (who isn't?), and the appropriate method in that case (like it or not) is having their decision checked by independent higher authorities (with the help of a lawyer if needed). Not accepting this means giving in to erring officials, which is not good for anyone.
You almost sound as if you reject the idea of a democratic, rules-based society with independent jurisdiction altogether. (If so, you cannot expect to get things your way here.)

You are absolutely right that German officialdom is often inflexible and overly strict with recognising foreign credentials. But since all of this is publicly available information (e.g. for recognition of foreign degrees in the ANABIN database), it should not have been a surprize.
Whether Germany is "shooting itself in the foot" here is debatable. Many (not only in Germany) think that erecting barriers of entry for foreigners is actually a good thing for the local job market. And the current lack of expert workforce in many fields is a new phenomenon - just a few years ago (when the current rules were made) things looked very different!

I don't want to go really into politics, but the way the American Administration is at present I can see the US being the same or even worse as Europe.

But good luck for the future.

I have to agree with Beppi that some government officials can claim something - but it doesn't necessarily make it so. I have often had this situation where a bureaucrat or judge claimed that something was only possible one way and it turned out there were exceptions and they just referred to the way it usually is. Over-worked, lazy, belligerent or incompetent? – hard to say.

I've look at a number of websites including official government ones and don't find this 2 year rule. It also doesn't make sense. It is a big jump for many to go from being employed to self-employed. But like you mention, you already have years of experience doing just that in your field. Why would they then require one to take employment? This seems a particular problem in Bavaria. I had police hassle me for something the city officials said was allowed. Yet they refused to give me any documentation to prove what they claimed were the real laws. They literally said; sorry but  this is Bavaria.

Hi there,

I had no problem getting jobs in my field, but have had issues too.

I'll leave it at that, given the request for "inspiring' comments.

Hi Lou, wherever you are!  Met you at Ostenplatz new Kebap.

Ciao Bello!

Hi everyone,

Please note that some posts have been removed from this thread.

Can we please focus on the real subject of this topic ?

Thank you all,

Priscilla
Expat.com team