German Salary bureaucratization

A perfect example of the hyper-bureaucratization of German society is salaries. As I've found out from my wife who recently found a new job in Stuttgart, salaries are exactly determined by your education status. And I mean exactly.

Say you have a Bachelor's Degree. Your salary is then a 5B, for example, depending on the profession. And you will not be able to rise higher than a 5A. You might receive a little more if you have experience in the position and depending on your family status, but your salary is basically stuck. You know how much you will make your whole life.

There is no give and take concerning salaries for most jobs. Maybe this is different in the corporate world, and perhaps the legal world, but for many jobs this is the case. There's little salary discussion when you start a new job because your education pegs your salary. This is so completely different from the average American experience that it took me quite some time to fully accept it as true.