‘They fire, we hire’: Germany seizes on Silicon Valley’s woes

An almost full moon is seen behind the quadriga of Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Germany, with one of the world’s oldest populations, has gaping holes in its labour force: according to IT industry group Bitkom, 137,000 IT jobs are unfilled. — Reuters

BERLIN: Faced with a tight labour market and a shortage of workers with key software engineering skills, some German companies are looking at thousands of layoffs in Silicon Valley as an opportunity to recruit top talent.

The US West Coast has always been the main destination for ambitious software engineers looking to work in the best-paid, most elite corner of their profession, but the mass redundancies have created a pool of jobseekers that Germany is eager to tap.