Advice for a young family moving to Leipzig/Berlin

Hello to all,

I am moving to Germany in January with my wife who is from Leipzig and our new baby. I was hoping to get some help from anyone about my situation and if anyone has done anyhting similar.

Currently i own my own business in the UK as a chef. My wife is a manager at a cinema. We are probably going to move to Leipzig but may be tempted to move to Berlin too. My wife obviously speaks fluent German and hopes to get a job in the cinema or film business. I however do not speak German, though i am SLOWLY learning. I will probably stay at home and look after our little one until my german is better. Does anyone know if i get any financial support for this? ALso, i know unemployment is high in germany. My CV is not great, though i run my own business. Where do i start to look for employment and how good does my german need to be? I would like to continue to be self employed in the food and catering sector though. How difficult is this as a foreigner? Has anyone done this before and how successful have you been?

Any info would be great. Just stumbled upon this website and everyone seems very helpful!

CHeers

PS, im a massive football fan, how can i watch english football in germany??? Though my wife would probably not want you to tell me.

You will find the amount of regulation fearful!
I cannot speak for Leipzig bit I know Berlin well.
It is not a very good place to set up a business in.
High unemployment. Tourism and some "arty" areas are
the only success stories.
It is highly subsidized by the rest of Germany for historical reasons.
Remember that there is no shortage here of highly skilled and
well trained staff in "gastronomie" - at all levels.
Greek, Italian, Chinese, Thai and various Balkan lands are well represented
in the ethnic restaurant scene.
It is not PC to say so, but with a few exceptions the former DDR
is hardly a blooming economic landscape.
(Exceptions - Baltic coast - Rostock etc. Leipzig?, Jena, Dresden, Schwerin)
The cynic in me says that a Polish restaurant in Görlitz (or even Berlin) might be a goer.

Hi

if you own a property in the UK you can forget getting any social sec money, as it counts as capital. Even if you do get some, the money will only be on a loan basis. The bureaucracy thing here is a total nightmare, you'd best get some language help when you go to the various departments, as they (in Berlin at least), make no effort to converse in English, and in fact why should they?

You'll see jobs advertised here on TT, and on other sites, Craigslist.de is also not bad, and Exberliner has some jobs there, but as in the UK, the catering business is low paid.

Footy...Irish bars everywhere, a sky box might work depending on your City, Digital terrestrial sometimes have English matches, otherwise, sign up to a cable provider.

Best of luck when you get here.

Steve

www.steveshadforth.com

It's *dead* easy for a foreigner to get a job in the food industry here, just as in the UK. The food industry is probably one of the big employers of foreigners. Of course, it may well be low paid, duff hours, arduous work etc.

If your wife is German and from Leipzig, you obviously need to rely on her and her family to give you support in making applications, forming networks to find opportunities in the east of the country.

Don't stint on learning German. It's the key to a sustainable future here.

leipzig has a better economy, more companies and lower unemployment. but if your wife is looking to work in the film industry (or televison), berlin for film and cologne or hamburg have more t.v. productions than berlin (or so i'm told).

it could take you years to find viable employment. and if you're over 40, most companies won't even look at you. just being honest. ageism is rife in deutschland which is ironic considering the average age here is like 37.