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Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

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Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#261
Its time to start a world backslash to defend American workers. Like we do to ask for good working conditions in Asia.

During the 17th century England started to fight against slavery. One of the reasons is that with the Industrial Revolution, the only way to compete with them were with slave labor. Maybe we should combat slavery in USA.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#262
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very light analysis from me, so might not be fully true, but I live in the US, now in Europe, and in Canada before that. You could also say Canada is kind of in the middle. Well, maybe correlation doesn't imply causation in that case but here is what I can see: - US > Canada > Europe in terms of opportunities, be it starting salary, end-of-career salaries, and everything in the middle such as promotions, perso…

Completely agreed having lived and worked in all 3. Canada is the sweet spot.

Can you be more specific? Quality of life in Europe can vary greatly :)

I've considering applying for Canadian residency last year as I was looking for a new job but I quickly gave up.

There are many places in Europe with similar or even lower CoL all things considered, better social benefits, and a lot more opportunities.

Unless you specifically want to join an early stage startup, I don't see where Canada wins. But I might have missed something.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#263
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to back up any of your claims?

Back up claims? It is common knowledge - bus drivers for example, working for Santa Clara county transit make $35/h, bus drivers for (contracted) Google and such make less than $20.

That's not common knowledge to me, especially since I don't live in California. You have asserted certain claims and offer no evidence. "Common knowledge" isn't evidence.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#264
post #96

I find it astonishing how positive Bloomberg tries to spin this: People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva -The income range in the US is so large that there are lots of people at the bottom end who have to work multiple jobs. How much does that have to do with the longer work hours, Blo…

It's a very light analysis from me, so might not be fully true, but I live in the US, now in Europe, and in Canada before that. You could also say Canada is kind of in the middle. Well, maybe correlation doesn't imply causation in that case but here is what I can see: - US > Canada > Europe in terms of opportunities, be it starting salary, end-of-career salaries, and everything in the middle such as promotions, perso…

Where in the US and where in Europe...? It is very hard to generalize

San Fran vs Toronto vs Paris or Cleveland vs Vancouver vs London

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow, are u saying states in usa have same level culture difference like european countries? just in spain alone we have 4 different OFFICIAL languages

If I walk into a government building in my state, I will pick up a pamphlet which has notices in English, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Arabic. I can walk down a street and hear each of those languages being spoken. Are you really going to tell me that the Vietnamese experience in the United States is basically the same as the English experience? If so, please come visit on of the top 30 cities in the United State…

Just in Switzerland (which has only 8 million people) there are 4 official languages. Only 30k people speak Romansh, so let's ignore that one. But if you go to the German part, most people don't even understand French. Likewise, if you go to the French part, most people don't understand German. The Italian part is quite a bit smaller than rest of Switzerland, and most people there choose to learn French as a second language.

People from the north of Belgium don't speak the same language as people in the south of Belgium. The dialects of German spoken in the north vs. the south of Germany are so different that they struggle to understand each other. If you want an example of people speaking English, compare accents in Scotland or Wales to that of London, which is a melting pot of everything from Cockney to Received Pronunciation. Now, imagine what it is like in between countries.

Seriously, trying to say that the difference between the accents of Louisiana, Socal, New England and Chicago are a big deal, throw in the Mexican accent, hell even a good dollop of Spanish, it is still really homogeneous. Compared to Europe where there are places two hours drive away from you which share none of the languages you speak, and where you will find nobody who speaks any of the dominant languages in the area you currently are. And not just a village, or a suburb or cultural enclave, but whole cities of people.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agreed having lived and worked in all 3. Canada is the sweet spot.

I'm in the process of moving to Toronto from the US. Any tips on good tech companies to work for. :)

Be ready to take a big salary haircut. Toronto is not SF or NY, but it's still expensive, and you'll earn about 50% less in USD terms.

As a Canadian, I heartily recommend to anyone in the tech business - work remotely for EUR, USD, GBP, or CHF or relocate to the US. You can make good friends anywhere, but a 50% salary difference plus higher taxes takes a lot more to overcome.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#267
US Workers work more hours because they are afraid to lose their jobs.

US Workers take less vacation because they are afraid to lose their jobs

US Workers don't want to lose their jobs because they will lose their health benefits, if they had them in the first place. The US doesn't have a good health care system, but it's better then nothing, even with the so called Obama Care. Funny, if you don't want health care (because it costs too much) you can get penalized by the IRS, via a fine for not paying for health insurance. Why kind of fucked up system do we have in the USA?

US Workers when they lose their jobs do not have a good social safety net, like European countries have.

I'm glad the Europeans work less than me. They've earned it and they demand it from their government. Me, as an American, if I don't like what I have here, I can just quit and look for a new job or become unemployed. Gee. Don't ever believe any American that says the USA is great. It isn't. If they do say it, they mus be rich & can afford it, may be in a Union, where it's hard to fire them, or maybe they are already retired.

Peace

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#268
post #225
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little Googling seem to suggest that this figure is somewhat representative: the US has slightly more mobility than the UK, which have less mobility than most of Europe: http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobil...

Wait a second. That data just measures correlation between father and son in terms of income. Thinking through it, if you had more sons do worse than their fathers economically, they would show up better in this data. It's not measuring upward mobility, but mobility in general. Seems suspect.

Yes, this is true - a short article with more data on Canada goes a little deeper:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2016059-eng.ht...

The rich stay rich, more than the poor stay poor (in Canada).

But the number is about [relative change in income across] the population - if most people are poor (which they are) high mobility across the population likely means poor people are moving up (or indeed getting much poorer - halving your income when you're already in the lower quartile would probably be as big a shift as doubling it - if not more).

You're right to ask for more detail, though.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a great variation in the United States. A country of 300 million people, where each state has a unique culture and identity. For some reason, "American" is often generalized to be a caricature that I, having lived in the Pacific Northwest my entire life, have never encountered.

wow, are u saying states in usa have same level culture difference like european countries? just in spain alone we have 4 different OFFICIAL languages

New Mexico contains just as many languages and vaguely sovereign states as Spain, including our own language isolate.

Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

#270
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these healthcare cost problems? U.S. software companies pay for employee health insurance while still maintaining higher salaries. Perhaps the healthcare system in England is marginally better than in the U.S., but I'm not aware of any health care crisis among U.S. software professionals.

On the health costs specifically: You basically get your health insurance for life & as understood at the moment portable to other EU countries, what happens when you lose your job or if your startup folds in the US or your insurance provider wont honour? I don't want to sound like some troll or something but theres tonnes of articles that go through the differences.

> what happens when you lose your job or if your startup folds in the US or your insurance provider wont honour?

In the U.S., your insurance isn't terminated upon loss of employment. I don't know of any physical ailments whose treatments an insurer can legally opt out of insuring. I believe in the possibility of the odd exception here or there, but nothing as endemic as you suggest.

> I don't want to sound like some troll or something but theres tonnes of articles that go through the differences.

I'm a software developer in the U.S., my friends, colleagues, and other acquaintances aren't dropping dead around me for want of health insurance. Your extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Mention of "tons of articles" isn't particularly persuasive.

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