alt Hacker News8 years ago, a new unskilled factory worker in china made the equivalent of 700-800€ hourly, with free food and accommodation (this cause issues in rural areas but this isn't the subject).
I assume salaries have gone up soon since, but even if they stagnated, what's the entry-level pay for unskilled factory work in Germany? Just to be sure it's more than 21k.
It’s not that much higher, actually. I just looked at some unskilled production line job offers, and looks like they start at 15-18€ per hour. Scale that to full time, and it’s less than 30k€/year - and of course without the free food and accommodation that you mentioned.