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Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

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Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#201

Post by radicality »

13of40 wrote: post #184
charlesdm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered working remotely for a US company? I know a guy making €7 or 8,000 per month, after tax, living in Paris. Best of both worlds: amazing quality of living, cheap cost of living + healthcare, lots of spending (or investing) money! Seems to be working well for him.

Same here. I know at least 4 people who are making six figure (US) salaries working for a US company from Europe. All for the same company and it's kind of hard to get in, but still...

What's the company if I may ask? Or at least the niche. Thanks!

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#202

Post by DanBC »

NetStrikeForce wrote: post #115
DanBC wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are EU wide shortages of some professions (eg nurses, especially mental health nurses; doctors, especially mental health doctors (and especially paediatric MH doctors)) and these professions take some time to train people.

What? No. There are countless unemployed nurses in Spain, Portugal and Ireland. Ask the NHS how many they bring in every year.

...and yet there are still nursing shortages, with many unfilled posts. These are jobs that have been advertised but unfilled.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#203

Post by holografix »

vemv wrote: post #29

Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We a…

Sadly if employers are able to pay so low it's because there's a serious oversupply of devs... On another note how possible is for a non European to get a job in Spain?

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#204

Post by duckingtest »

pcrh wrote: post #199
duckingtest wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example a dairy farmer in Switzerland earns more than one in Poland because people pay more for milk products in Switzerland compared to Poland. A Swiss farmer is much more productive when measured in currency units, but probably not that much in milk volume. However as we are talking about salary differences it's money that matters. >So why would the GDP per capita of their country be a useful tool in deciding…

I guess it depends on the sense in which "productivity" is being used. A remote dev working for a Bay Area company from Spain can be just as productive for his employer as one located in Los Gatos, CA. However the above method would categorize this dev as "objectively less productive", which seems counter-intuitive...

>However the above method would categorize this dev as "objectively less productive", which seems counter-intuitive...

It wouldn't, it purports to explain the differences in local salaries, or more precisely salaries paid by local entities to on-site developers.

It's true I didn't specify that explicitly in the first comment, along with definition of productivity, so your reading of it was a reasonable understanding. It's a good thing you helped me clarify the intended meaning.

One assumption is that foreign demand (for non-local use) for local on-site developers is small enough to not change the workforce demand significantly. So it won't work for India or other common offshore destination, but it seems to explain pay differences between USA and Spain, Norway and Switzerland reasonably.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#206

Post by gordaco »

Qantourisc wrote: post #196
gordaco wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another spaniard here, and I can confirm that it absolutely is a problem of not wanting to pay appropriate wages. First, most software companies only offer crappy jobs that don't require specific skills. Most of the job postings are for standard developing positions in very common languages such as Java or Python. Considering how many people finish their degree or their FP ( Formación Profesional , courses of about t…

What is wrong with Java/Python? I don't know about Java, but Python is certainly a nice language to write in in my opinion. (However don't expect raw performance from Python.)

It's not that they are bad languages, it's that they are the ones that everyone knows, so I don't believe that there are open positions on those languages that nobody wants, unless the money is obscenely low (which it often is).

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#207

Post by tluyben2 »

I live in Spain (am Dutch); even more; I live in Andalusia. For me that's better, besides getting people to work. We cannot find people at all for programming or our brewery. Everyone around us is unemployed, however they either a) do not speak English; we speak Spanish, but a lot of our clients do not b) do not want to work c) are foreign and have no papers to work. It's quite horrible. And it's not for lack of trying; we have been trying for at least 5 years. In my experience it has nothing to do with payment. This is just limited to Andalusia ofcourse; my colleague says it's better up north, however some people I met from other parts and who have companies complain about the same thing.

Then another issue with the country is the extremely hard time you have in hiring someone ; paperwork, you cannot fire them even if they are crap etc. And the paperwork to get grants for hiring people (which are there) is incredible. We have a company in PT as well and it's quite different there. The gov needs to take their finger out. Luckily we have a very helpful (Spanish) mayor who loves entrepreneurs and helps us with whatever, but he also shakes his head when talking about hiring people locally.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#208

Post by merqurio »

nostrebored wrote: post #151
merqurio wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so.. Most of my friends left Spain looking for better long term opportunities rather than money. Even if our economy (and politicians) sucks, quality of life is pretty high with those salaries. I think the problem is the polarisation in the population. Very well trained people is leaving the country while non-skilled people remain. Skilled people do not trust the system therefore they leave as soon as t…

Quality of life is high, but what if you have a long term goal of moving? Making a lower wage even if proportionally you're taking home more money has a break even point, and 35k in Spain doesn't hit it.

Totally agree, i wasn't defending low salaries at all, just sharing my insider experience of the reasons why people is leaving Spain.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#209

Post by e12e »

Raticide wrote: post #162
UVB-76 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few thoughts off the top of my head: a) Language barrier — Spanish is only the fifth most spoken language in the EU, with only 15% speaking it as a first or second language (around half of whom are Spanish citizens); b) Lower salaries on offer (as others have noted) as opposed to working in the UK, Germany, or France; b) Given the economic situation in the country, and high levels of unemployment, Spain isn't anywher…

Well, at least they won't have to compete with the UK soon.

Just because UK leaves the EU, that doesn't mean it won't still welcome foreign workers (especially from the EU).

When I was last on Iceland, I met a handful of professionals working in software engineering and engineering - all but one of them was from the EU (a few from Spain). Anecdote, sure, but I got the impression a lot of businesses on Iceland hired various foreign workers (not to the exclusion of Icelanders, just to fill in a shortage of skilled workers - perceived or real). And then there's Norway, which participates via the EEC, but isn't an EU member. And the UK has made some noise about getting a similar deal.

Re: Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed

#210

Post by tluyben2 »

vemv wrote: post #29

Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: - The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We a…

> around 36000 euros

I know a lot of employees or freelancers making a lot more working for companies in Malaga or companies elsewhere; more said it but get projects abroad; worked well for us. A problem here is that you need USPs because in Portugal people are working for a lot less than in Spain, all speak English and very willing to take whatever work. Also less rules; easy to fire people in the first few years.

> companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving

where does that come from?

> Tech stacks tend to be years behind San Francisco,

That is a problem? I would say that's kind of an advantage? Most programmers would find it more of a problem to learn new stuff all the time.

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