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Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

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Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#31

Post by sprout »

tptacek wrote: post #22
pyre wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was that if the US mandated 6 weeks of vacation, and wages went down as a result, so would prices, no?

What's cheaper in Germany? Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Transportation costs more. Health care is obviously cheaper, but Germans pay much higher taxes. Food appears to be just slightly cheaper in Germany.

Transportation costs more by what metric? I think the population density would do a lot to offset the naive euros/mile comparison. I suspect there's a similar effect with housing, that cultural norms in the US create unnecessarily large housing expenses, for example large manicured lawns. Though I'm reaching a bit here, I still think this isn't as cut and dry 'cheaper.' Question is more what's culturally expected? Daily hot showers are pretty pricey for example.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#33

Post by ido »

wheels wrote: post #26
ShabbyDoo wrote: post #10

What is the marginal cost to an employer in Germany of an hour of labor? And, in the US? The article did not explicitly state the metric used to quantify "output", but, given other similar studies I've seen, I must presume that profit/employee across the economy is a likely underlying metric. Given such a metric, could labor cost differences explain this "efficiency"? Let us consider a contrived example where, in Ohi…

Wages are in general lower, and on the whole the spectrum is compressed -- so low-paid jobs tend to be a big higher, but a software developer in Berlin makes about half to a third of what they would in Silicon Valley. Also, the article is a bit off on some of its numbers -- 6 weeks of vacation aren't required by law, 24 days are (i.e. just under 5 weeks), though 6 is a common perk. Additionally, at least in the softw…

Why would you compared Berlin (one of Germany's poorer mega-cities) to pretty much the best paying area for tech workers in the states?

It's true that you'd still see a huge salary disparity even if you compare SV to Hamburg, Munich or Frankfurt, but comparing to Berlin is still a bit disingenuous.

Also, I believe SV (especially for tech workers) is the outlier here - there is no other place in the world where developers are so highly payed, and the highest average wage earners among professionals in Germany are not people in the software industry like in SV (they are probably the people working in finance & banking in Frankfurt).

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#34

Post by ido »

tptacek wrote: post #22
pyre wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was that if the US mandated 6 weeks of vacation, and wages went down as a result, so would prices, no?

What's cheaper in Germany? Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Transportation costs more. Health care is obviously cheaper, but Germans pay much higher taxes. Food appears to be just slightly cheaper in Germany.

    Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area.
Where did you get your information? Have you tried comparing the rent of a reasonably central apartment in Frankfurt & Munich (Germany's wealthiest and most expensive cities) with their New York and San Fransisco equivalents?

Housing in major cities in Germany is drastically cheaper than in the US.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#35

Post by tptacek »

ido wrote: post #34
tptacek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's cheaper in Germany? Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Transportation costs more. Health care is obviously cheaper, but Germans pay much higher taxes. Food appears to be just slightly cheaper in Germany.

Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Where did you get your information? Have you tried comparing the rent of a reasonably central apartment in Frankfurt & Munich (Germany's wealthiest and most expensive cities) with their New York and San Fransisco equivalents? Housing in major cities in Germany is drastically cheaper than in the US.

Are you seriously suggesting that Manhattan and San Francisco are representative of the housing markets of the entire US?

The average cost of a newly built detached house in Germany in 2008 was $320,540USD. The average cost of same in the United States in 2008 was $292,600[1].

Yes, I did compare, but not aggressively. What's your source?

[1] Bulwien Gesa via "Global Property Guide", and the US Government, respectively.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#36

Post by maxawaytoolong »

tptacek wrote: post #22
pyre wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was that if the US mandated 6 weeks of vacation, and wages went down as a result, so would prices, no?

What's cheaper in Germany? Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Transportation costs more. Health care is obviously cheaper, but Germans pay much higher taxes. Food appears to be just slightly cheaper in Germany.

Renting an apartment in Berlin is WAY cheaper than in NYC, and the cheap apartments are actually nice.

That's not really answering your question, but for a gigantor metropolis berlin is a lot cheaper than manhattan...

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#37

Post by ido »

tptacek wrote: post #35
ido wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Where did you get your information? Have you tried comparing the rent of a reasonably central apartment in Frankfurt & Munich (Germany's wealthiest and most expensive cities) with their New York and San Fransisco equivalents? Housing in major cities in Germany is drastically cheaper than in the US.

Are you seriously suggesting that Manhattan and San Francisco are representative of the housing markets of the entire US? The average cost of a newly built detached house in Germany in 2008 was $320,540USD. The average cost of same in the United States in 2008 was $292,600[1]. Yes, I did compare, but not aggressively. What's your source? [1] Bulwien Gesa via "Global Property Guide", and the US Government, respectivel…

My source is living in Austria, which has a very similar housing market to Germany & having friends in California & New York who pay $2000 a month for an apartment nobody here would pay even half (maybe not even a third or a quarter) of that for.

And there are also much cheaper cities in Germany, I was comparing the most expensive in both countries since you talked about major US metro areas.

Pretty sure that even if you go down the ladder and compare Seattle/Miami/San Diego to Hamburg/Berlin/Cologne or whatever their German counterparts are German housing is still cheaper.

EDIT: I see you changed your comment while I was replying. You're right that if you compare suburban housing (detached houses) the US is cheaper. But if we are talking about metropolitan housing it's a different story. Also, relatively few people live in detached houses in Germany - these do not represent the average household like they do in the US.

I don't think we are at a disagreement, because I don't think we are comparing the same thing. I am talking about metropolitan life (apartment, central location in a big city) while you are talking about housing in general (which in the US mostly comprises houses in suburbs).

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#38

Post by tptacek »

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #36
tptacek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's cheaper in Germany? Housing appears to cost about as much as a major US metro area. Transportation costs more. Health care is obviously cheaper, but Germans pay much higher taxes. Food appears to be just slightly cheaper in Germany.

Renting an apartment in Berlin is WAY cheaper than in NYC, and the cheap apartments are actually nice. That's not really answering your question, but for a gigantor metropolis berlin is a lot cheaper than manhattan...

The rental market in Manhattan simply isn't comparable to the rest of the US. The average cost of a 3bdr apartment in the center of Berlin is, from casual Google research, almost exactly the same in USD as a 3bdr apartment in the middle of Chicago. Chicago, in turn, is more expensive than Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Columbus, Omaha, &c &c.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#39

Post by tptacek »

ido wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously suggesting that Manhattan and San Francisco are representative of the housing markets of the entire US? The average cost of a newly built detached house in Germany in 2008 was $320,540USD. The average cost of same in the United States in 2008 was $292,600[1]. Yes, I did compare, but not aggressively. What's your source? [1] Bulwien Gesa via "Global Property Guide", and the US Government, respectivel…

My source is living in Austria, which has a very similar housing market to Germany & having friends in California & New York who pay $2000 a month for an apartment nobody here would pay even half (maybe not even a third or a quarter) of that for. And there are also much cheaper cities in Germany, I was comparing the most expensive in both countries since you talked about major US metro areas. Pretty sure that even if…

Don't let actual research statistics and my actual argument (US v Germany, not Berlin v NYC) get in the way of your life experience.

Honestly, it's not that hard to actually gather the statistics and muster an argument based on evidence. Every major metro area tracks these numbers.

Having just replied to another comment with 4 minutes of Google research to establish the rough parity between the cost of the Berlin rental market with that of Chicago, the third largest city in the US, I'm comfortable supposing right back at you that you're wrong, and that housing in Germany simply isn't significantly cheaper than it is in the US, despite the fact that it is the single largest component of the typical cost of living and the fact that on average Germans earn less than Americans.

And, sorry, no, I'm talking about major metro, not suburbs.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#40

Post by mars »

tptacek wrote: post #2

There's no such thing as a free lunch; whether or not we're less productive, nobody's paying you for the hours you don't work. And, indeed, aren't Germany's wages, by sector, consistently lower than those in the US?

i'm partner at an interactive agency in germany and i was wondering how much development work in the u.s. costs. we are billing our customers 80-100eur per hour (109-136usd). experienced freelancers (frontend/backend devs) bill between 35 and 60 eur per hour (47-81 usd). is that comparable to the states?
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