Oh and I forgot; I've been to Europe; lol as if that mattered.

It's sad that it is better then USA; much better in fact; but their economy is better then ours for the foreseeable future.

http://www.indexmundi.com/germany/unemployment_rate.html

Europe Unemployment stats; pretty clearly what I said is true.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/images/3/39/Unemployed_rates_EU_US_Japan.PNG

wow a hexapost. looks more like your nerve has been struck ;)

im not saying your statement is wrong im saying its overgeneralized.

and lol at being embarressed about my countries unemployment rate. there are a lot of things that embarress me about germany. the 3rd reich, the current government, the fact that we are the sell tons of weapons to questionable leaders, a mentality of whining and lots of other things, but not the unemployment rate.

I think it's interesting that you brought up Germany as an example, DC, since it's one of the most heterogenous countries in terms of unemployment.
This map illustrates that:
http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-12125.html

There are areas with unemployment rates that are higher than 10% (basically areas of the former GDR). But there are also the southern states with less than 4%.
So there are a lot of geographic disparities within the country. Those disparities become even bigger when you look at the whole continent. It's true that in some southern EU states the unemployment rates are terribly high.
However generally, Germany's unemployment rates have been going down since 2005, since the structures of the country's welfare system have been modernised. That also happened in a few other states like Austria or Denmark.

I think it's very difficult to compare the US with Europe, since Europe is far more heterogenous. It's also difficult to compare Europe's individual countries with the US, because the US is so big.


As for Chase: Come to Baden-Württemberg or Bavaria. People who are skilled in sciences are needed there. Oh and you being fluent in English might be a plus, too. (Only thing you need to do is learning a bit of German).

As for Germany:

We have less than 3Mio unemployed officially. Statistically that means full employment.

The market is cleaned from well educated, talented young people. Persons belonging to that group not finding a job are either totally unwilling to work or change location - or are completely wrong in thinking they belong to that group.

Engineering graduates can choose their job more or less (where Bachelors are not considered graduates, but only Masters and Diploma).

Bachelors are not considered well educated in this society yet (and hopefully won't). We only have bachelors for a few years. Basically the bachelor has been introduced to reduce the lack of employees on the market and to have cheap laborers that can easily be fired later on due to lack of knowledge.

Long story short: You finished a good education now (master or learned a craftmens job) life is very good right now. It is a blessing to be in this class.

You guys all have fair points. Maybe I was overgeneralizing; and certainly Germany is doing above average in Europe in terms of economy. It is fair to say that Germany has made a lot of gains since 2005.

My only point was to say that 18-28 is always tough in terms of unemployment; my parenthetical only took us off topic; my apologies.

If you're smart, talented, motivated, and get things done, you'll find work. Hell if you don't, start a small business. You don't have to be the next Google to make a living.

"overflooded" at the professional level really depends on what area you're talking about. I can tell you that in mine, we are hiring like mad; I'm interviewing people tomorrow.

Our problem is finding enough good people with the right skills and experience--admittedly the shortage is more at the experienced levels than entry levels, but we're hiring a lot of those too.

If you're good enough, you'll have job security--even if it means jumping to another company when your troubled one lets you go.

Is that software engineering you're talking about?

I'm in technology consulting with a large firm. Software engineering is one area we do, though that's not currently my area--although a few years ago I did manage a development team while at a startup. The group that handles custom development projects has been growing as well.