I mean, it's a protected term in Canada too but it doesn't necessarily lead to higher salaries.

My cousin who's an electrician made about as much as I did as an electrical engineer, and I left electrical engineering to be a software developer because it paid more. Engineering paid more than being an electrical technician / designer, but not by a huge amount.

It does not only dictate your professional life/status in Germany, being a doctor, your social as well. Someone I know got a postdoc in germany, no luck finding a place to live until they started asking their german collegues to call and saying "doctor so-and-so is looking for an appartment". So, he gets one. The guy has a very long full name, so the nametag the landlord is gonna put on the postbox is way to long, but if you cut off the part where it says he is a doctor, it would fit. He insists to cut that part away, the landlord just refuses, says fuck your name and person basically, and cuts off part of his last name instead. Saying you are a doctor gets you first in fucking everything (maybe not lufthansa, then they just say 'senators' or something). Extremely class divided social society that.

TBF some plumbers and electricians are qualified engineers, just not all.

Yeah it's difficult for me to name my title in English 'cause the word doesn't exist. I went to a technical high school, not university. (Not college!)