Most middle-class British families want to leave Britain

Tower Bridge, London. My wife and I were married there.
Photo by Tanya Hart

I've previously written about a poll showing that many Americans would like to move outside the US. Interestingly, up to 40% of younger Americans stated that they would like to live outside the US. Many Americans I've spoken with have told me they would love to live in the UK, so this suggests an obvious question: is the UK a nice place to live?

Having lived in the UK for years, I have to say it's absolutely a nice place to live. Apparently, though, the British disagree with me. A recent poll found that two in three middle-class British families would like to move abroad.

When you talk about the reasons for emigration, there are "pull" factors — adventure, a new love, a new job, and so on — and "push" factors — no work locally, escaping war, fleeing oppression, and so on. The research about why British families wanted to leave was definitely push factors: avoiding the weather, rude people, and poor values.

I can actually understand some of this. The UK has a drinking culture which absolutely floored me when I first encountered it. It's quite normal to see people stumbling around drunk on the street and vomit-strewn sidewalks near pubs. More than once I would walk into a Wetherspoons for breakfast and find people having a Full English and a pint.The weather is, admittedly, rubbish and the British economy has been stumbling. Despite this, I don't think the situation is nearly as dire as many Brits think. Part of this is the "grass is always greener" syndrome, though I confess that British people, unlike their American counterparts, have probably seen that other grass firsthand.

Of course, my "grass is always greener" theory is kind of shot to hell when I find out that 80% of British expats have no intention of returning to the UK.

Jobs have arrived!

Gratuitous Cat Photo
Photo by Dr. Hemmert

Check out the International Jobs page!

A Web company who's growing like mad is willing to hire you and move you to Amsterdam. They've reached out to me and we struck a deal whereby I would help them find techies who are willing to seek adventure abroad. For those of a non-technical persuasion, I apologize for not having anything to offer at the present time, but who knows what the future holds? I'll still be posting regularly.

This is strictly an experiment and the company has asked that their name not be used (naturally you'll be told who they are if you apply). I don't know how long this will last for and I promise not to spam you too often :), but if I hear of more opportunities, I'll certainly let you know.

If you have tech skills, now yo have no excuse not to try and move abroad.

Moving to Malta

There was a time that my wife and I seriously considered moving to Malta. Malta is perhaps one of the most underrated destinations out there. It consists of a small archipelago in the Mediterranean, off the southern tip of the boot of Italy. It never freezes and never gets too hot. It has virtually no pollution and very little crime.

Grand Harbour, Malta
Photo by John Haslam

Work permit jobs are coming to Overseas Exile

It's a beautiful world out there
Photo Credit: Bert Kaufmann

It should come as no surprise to those familiar with how blogging works that this site is popular enough that I am regularly contacted by companies wanting me to advertise their products or services to you. As a general rule I've shielded you from this, but I've made exceptions a couple of times for those willing to provide a relevant guest blog post (not all of those are corporate, of course). Now I'm willing to make another exception because it solves a major problem that many of my readers have.

How do you find a company that will let you move abroad?


What I've wanted to do for a long time is to be able to regularly post international jobs here, with a particular focus on jobs where the employer is willing to sponsor international candidates. One company in Western Europe has contacted me and is hoping that my readers match their hiring needs. There are a couple of final details which are being ironed out, but it will work like this.

I'll create a "jobs" page on this site, listing the jobs available. Currently these will be front-end and back-end software development roles, but in the future, who knows? If one of the jobs strikes your fancy, you'll drop me an email and we'll set up a time for a quick phone/Skype call. On the call, you'll be asked a few questions to make sure that you know what you're getting into. You'll also be given more details about the nature of the work. You will be able to ask some questions regarding logistics, the job, or "what the heck is like living in another country?"

I then forward your CV and/or cover letter.

The company will take over from there and arrange full interviews. If you get an offer, they'll sponsor your work permit and help with your relocation costs.

This has been in the works for a long time and I'm hoping this will be successful — if for no other reason than helping people live their dreams.

Please note that I am not a recruiter; I'm an expat consultant. I won't be judging your ability to do the job, the company will. My job will be to find people willing to move to another country.

American's reasons for leaving US are changing

Photo Credit: Beverly & Pack

The US is a great country. The freedoms there are wonderful, the people are warm, the "can do" attitude is great (you'd be surprised how American the "can do" attitude is) and when there's a natural disaster in the world, Americans are often the reaching deep into their pockets to help others. For all of the negative press the US receives, there are a lot of good things about the country.

And then there are the other bits.

Immigrating to Alberta, Canada

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Photo by Darren Kirby

Lately it seems that Canada has been working overtime trying to attract expats. I've written about Canada's Skilled Trade Immigration Program and now I see that Alberta, Canada, has an entire section of their Web site dedicated to how to immigrate to Alberta.


Canada doesn't have the appeal to Americans the way Europe does, but it should. While some Americans (er, Fox News fans) think that Canada is some socialist quagmire complete with death panels, the reality is that Canada is the fifth most economically free country on the planet (the US comes in at a paltry 18th). Also, when the US economy collapsed at the end of the Bush administration, Canada was just fine because, unlike the US, they forbid their financial institutions from engaging in the same dodgy behavior that destroyed large parts of the US financial industry.


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And to add insult to injury, thanks to declining earnings for the majority of Americans, the average Canadian is now wealthier than the average American. Ouch. Maybe Canada's worth another look.

Self-Employed US Expats

Home Office photo by geishaboy500

Today's post is US-centric again, I'm afraid. My apologies to all of my non-US readers.

According to one expat survey I've read, almost 25% of US expats (who responded to the survey) are self-employed. I find this number astonishingly high given that other countries don't hand out work permits for self-employed people, though the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty is an interesting counter-example. What would surprise me, however, is most expats abroad knowing about the self-employment tax. When most didn't know about the US's curious citizen-based taxation system, they would probably be astonished to find out that if they're living and working abroad, self-employed US expats still have to pay an extra 15.3% of their income to the US to cover Medicare and Social Security.


If you plan to return to the US at some point, this is fine. However, if you're a permanent expat like myself, this is particularly galling because you're required to pay for Medicare, but you're not allowed to use it. Additionally, if you collect a foreign pension, your Social Security benefit gets cut. Never mind that you paid for that Social Security benefit; as far as the US is concerned, you're a filthy-rich expat trying to take advantage Uncle Sam. Personally, I think that if the US government explicitly denies me services because I live abroad with my wife and daughter, they shouldn't be charging me for said services, but what do I know?

It gets even worse when you realize that you may be paying for identical benefits in the country you're living in. However, the US has a handful of Totalization Agreements designed to avoid double-paying Social Security. These are mostly with European governments, so if you live elsewhere, tough luck. I cannot help but wonder if the US government has ever commissioned a study showing how much they spend to enforce and to offset the damage of our unique citizen-based taxation scheme relative to the income generated.

Why Some Countries Care More About Degrees

Photo by Beth Punches

In your quest to be an expat, there is always the question of whether or not you're going to need a university degree to move abroad. For many fields, such as engineering or medicine, of course you'll need a degree. For other fields, such as marketing or IT, many people are self-taught and a degree is not necessary. However, when I wrote about Germany struggling to find workers for the Blue Card program, I thought (and still think), that the Germans were premature in worrying about it. However, a German friend of mine got in touch with me and painted a slightly different picture.


Germany, amongst other things, tremendously values a university degree. Many otherwise qualified candidates for jobs are overlooked because of this. I have one friend who has a over a decade of top-notch marketing experience and a very strong CV who was turned down for jobs in Germany just for that lack of a degree. You could be genetically engineered as the perfect fit for a given job in Berlin only to be turned down over that lack of a degree. Many, many people are frustrated by this.

Here in France, it's often the same problem. A university degree is very highly valued and as many people will tell you: if you don't have a degree, even if you do get a job, you can forget about significant career advancement (note: not all companies are this foolish, but it's a problem here). For many companies, management positions are reserved for people with pieces of paper and you're less likely to get a work permit without one.

In the UK, it was different. Nobody cared if I had a degree. Nobody cared if I had a degree in the US (I have an Associate's Degree, but big whoop). What they cared about was results and I've got a strong CV showing results.

So what's the difference? What's so different about the German and French cultures that many companies prefer education over experience?

I suspect I know what's going on and after chatting with my wife, she confirmed it: university education is so dirt cheap in Germany and France that if you don't have a degree, the question "why not?" is immediately raised. Clearly something must be wrong with you if you didn't take that virtually free education, right? In both the US and the UK, graduation rates have been dropping the past few years and this is due to a combination of a sluggish world economy and astronomical tuition fees. Here in France, however, my wife paid about €2,000 a year to obtain a Master's Degree in French Law. German universities today often charge around €500 per semester.

Contrast that with US tuition rate hikes:

To attend an in-state public college [in the USA] for the 2012-13 academic year, the average overall cost (or "sticker price") for students who don't receive any financial aid rose 3.8% to a record $22,261, according to the report.

Average tuition fees in the UK are only £8,678.36, but given that average salary in the UK is £26,500, that's a significant percentage of annual income.

Perversely, Germans and French are less likely to have a university degree than the British or Americans. Perhaps students value it less because it's so inexpensive (I've heard this before, but only anecdotally).

What about your country? What are your university rates like and how do employers view a university degree?

Fly Around the World for Under $200

Flying over the Alps
Photo by Panoramas

There is an interesting dilemma that many would-expats face: how do you know you want to live somewhere if you've never visited it? One of my English professors in college told me the story of a student who claimed he didn't need to travel the world because he had the internet. He can see the countries online. He can watch videos of their daily life. He can learn their languages online.

White House Petition to Enact Residence-Based Taxation

Photo courtesy Matt Wade photography

For those of you who are aware of the issue, there's a petition to change the US federal income tax from a citizen-based tax system to a residence-based tax system like the rest of the world. Please sign this petition. I doubt it will do much good as there aren't many in the US government who seem to give a damn about expats, but we have to try.

Germany Struggling With New Blue Card Law

Schwerin Castle, Germany
Photo by Harald Hoyer

Back in May I reported about the new German Blue Card law. It's an astonishingly forward thinking law designed to let businesses attract the workers they need. Basically, get a job offer for enough money and you can move to Germany and be an expat (read my five part "get a work permit" series if you want to know how to get that job offer). However, there's a recent report that the German Blue Card has not attracted many skilled workers.


From the article:

Die im Sommer eingeführte "Blue Card" hat bislang kaum ausländische Fachkräfte nach Deutschland angelockt. In den ersten zwei Monaten wurden lediglich 139 Blue Cards vergeben, wie die Welt am Sonntag unter Berufung auf Daten des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge berichtete. 

Davon gingen 112 an Ausländer, die bereits vor 2012 nach Deutschland eingereist waren. "Der Massenansturm von Fachkräften bleibt aus", sagte laut dem Bericht Gunilla Fincke, Geschäftsführerin des Sachverständigenrates deutscher Stiftungen für Integration und Migration. Deutschland hänge nach wie vor der Ruf an, Zuwanderer seien nicht willkommen, obwohl das Zuwanderungsrecht liberaler geworden sei.

In English (and trying to smooth out the rough edges of Google translate):

The launch of the "Blue Card" in the summer has not attracted many foreign workers to Germany. Only 139 Blue cards were issued in the first two months, citing data from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. 

Of the issued cards, 112 were awarded to foreigners who had already entered Germany before 2012. "The massive influx of skilled workers is waiting," reported Gunilla Fincke, director of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration. Germany still has the reputation of immigrants not being welcome, even though the immigration legislation has become more liberal.

I can actually think of a few different issues causing the problem. First and foremost, it was reported after the law had been in effect only two months! I'm surprised that a brand new program taking time to get started is actually newsworthy, particularly when you consider that it can take months to find a new employee locally, much less internationally.

More interesting to me, though, is the person who emailed me complaining that the German Labor office told them to apply for a Blue Card but the Immigration office denied them a chance to even apply for the German Blue Card because they didn't have a residency permit! That's completely contrary to my reading of the German Blue Card law. How can the Germans expect to have people to navigate the waters of German Immigration law if the German Immigration officials don't know the law?

French Food Snobs on New Year's Eve

From a market near La Défense

Ah, the typical expat lament: I miss food.

I grew up, mostly, in Texas. There's a lot I could say about Texas, but the one thing I miss the most from Texas is the food. And the one thing you won't find in Europe is proper Mexican food. I've been to "Mexican" restaurants and had a waitress ask me what a taco was. Seriously, it's almost universally awful over here and I've eaten at "Mexican" and "Tex-Mex" restaurants in more countries than you'd believe.