Germany needs foreign specialists

Germany needs foreign workers, the country does not have enough engineers, so it seems wise to hire workers from other countries. Many students like in Automation and Robotics are eager to work in Germany after they finished their Master. To do that very good knowledge of the German language is mandatory, but there is a second obstacle that makes it very difficult to work in Germany for a local company. The immigration law (German) from 2004 makes it difficult for foreigners to work here, because the "Agentur für Arbeit" claims that a employee is only important if he/she earns more than 84,000€. No German company will pay that to a beginner, even with a PhD.
Some people told that it still is possible, but I do not know more about this. Does anybody of you have different or same experiences or know some foreigners who are allowed to work in Germany? Please comment or mail us.

Source: Tagesschau (German)

Television, Radio and PC fees in Germany - GEZ

This post is important for every student, because everybody will sooner or later receive a letter of a organisation named GEZ. In this letter, obviously written in German, they ask you, if you have television, radio or computer devices. In Germany you have to pay a monthly fee for having this devices. The fee for Computers is around 5€ per month.

If you do not reply to one of the 3 letters, one day a member of the GEZ will visit you at your home. He will ask you to let him in and pretend that you have to. That is wrong. Do not let this fellow into your home. Say that you do not have television or radio and that he has to leave your home now. He is not allowed to enter your appartment and he will not come back with police to assist him.

Another important fact is that the fees, will also be fined backwards. So if you register and explain, that you live in Germany for 6 months now, with you Labtop, you have to pay for this 6 month also. This can be up to 2 years! And thats a lot of money. So take care what you say and write in this contence.

Having devices that can receive Television, Radio or Internet is not for free in Germany. If you have questions about this please ask us. At arcouncil@gmail.com

Das Ruhrgebiet

The Ruhrgebiet is the region in which Dortmund lies. In former times, there were a lot of coal and steel Fabrics. Nowdays most of them don't produce anything anymore but they are musseums. All together form now the famous Industriekultur Route, which is a route full of these interesting old buildings.

You can visit them in vacations or in a weekend, for more information go to the Industrikultur website.