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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

#51

Post by tptacek »

sasvari wrote: post #43
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…

These numbers don't take the lifetime of the houses into account. Without having actual data I would say German houses have a higher lifetime than US counterparts. In Europe, and especially in Germany, houses are usually built not for a decade, but for multiple decades (more robust houses, better insulation etc.). I am not sure if this also applies to most American houses. Do the numbers then still reflect the actual…

Is it your impression that people in the US replace their physical houses every decade? Mine was built in the 1920's.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#52

Post by tbrownaw »

pyre wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may very well be better for everyone's quality of life to pay people less and mandate more leisure; in other words, it may be better if society decides (for most people) how hard they should work. But that's orthogonal to my point. You could mandate 6 weeks vacation in the US, too. But wages would go down as a result. Generally, if you're in our profession and you want more vacation, become a contractor. People ha…

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?

If a hamburger costs 12 minutes' pay now, it should still cost 12 minutes' pay when everyone is working less and getting paid less per year. Because it will still take 10 (normalized) minutes to make, and all the companies along the way probably won't change their profit margins that much.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#53

Post by auston »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #5
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?

According to Max Klein, that is certainly true for programmers. Based on the numbers he gave, "a good programmer" in Germany gets paid less than a fresh college grad in the US. http://maxkle.in/giving-up-on-europe/

I have different experience (lived in Germany for 10 months), JavaScript/Ruby/Python developers make roundabout 35-55 euros per hour.

Additionally, this article rings true for my experience both living in Germany & working with Germans in the US (especially here); They bust ass & are amazingly productive.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#55

Post by fforw »

charlesju wrote: post #54

My counter argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... USA GDP - 14.2 T Germany GDP - 3.3 T

Of course you also have 3.5 times the population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...

difference only 26%... guess you should move to Qatar or Luxembourg though -- but when you're not rich from oil or moving large sums of bank money around, that high GDP is not actually helping, is it?

And then there is stuff like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#56

Post by jimbokun »

hga wrote: post #30
hugothefrog wrote: post #19

I just returned from Berlin a couple of nights ago, and met an English guy (I'm a New Zealander living in London) who'd worked there for a few years. He is an aerospace engineer working for a very famous English engineering firm in their German office. He was of the opinion that German productivity, at least when compared with other European countries, was a myth. He told exactly the same anecdotes about German indiv…

R. V. Jones made a similar observation in Most Secret War (WWII) about collaboration between the operational and R&D branches. The Germans would build to spec without interaction with the requesting organization producing a fine piece of engineering whereas in the U.K. there would tend to be back and forth on the requirements and so on, with the U.K. device being less polished but more flexible and more likely to sat…

This is actually a timely piece of advice in my case, as I interact with my German managers. They might be expecting a more "go off and engineer what I asked for attitude" from me, while I'm doing more of the back and forth thing of suggesting alternative approaches with various trade offs.

Of course, they did decide to start their company here in the U.S., so they may appreciate some things about the U.S. style of doing business.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#57

Post by jimbokun »

tptacek wrote: post #42
gaius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, as the article mentions, the culture of presenteeism.

In the few large company environments I've worked at, banking up unused vacation days was actively discouraged; it's an accounting problem (accrued days have to be paid on separation). That, plus the fact that virtually every established company has policies restricting year-to-year carryover of vacation, suggests that the "culture of presenteeism" idea, while compelling, is not actually suppressing actual vacations.

It's discourage by HR, but is your manager going to pass you over for a raise or a promotion because you didn't take enough vacation days?

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#58

Post by jdminhbg »

mars wrote: post #40
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?

Experienced Rails devs in the US generally bill $100+/hr; similar for .NET contractors. I don't have a ton of pricing experience with anything else.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#60

Post by Vivtek »

hga wrote: post #30
hugothefrog wrote: post #19

I just returned from Berlin a couple of nights ago, and met an English guy (I'm a New Zealander living in London) who'd worked there for a few years. He is an aerospace engineer working for a very famous English engineering firm in their German office. He was of the opinion that German productivity, at least when compared with other European countries, was a myth. He told exactly the same anecdotes about German indiv…

R. V. Jones made a similar observation in Most Secret War (WWII) about collaboration between the operational and R&D branches. The Germans would build to spec without interaction with the requesting organization producing a fine piece of engineering whereas in the U.K. there would tend to be back and forth on the requirements and so on, with the U.K. device being less polished but more flexible and more likely to sat…

Germany is the long-established engineering culture, building on the old guild system of craftsmen. (Which still exist - the craftsmen's guilds, I mean. You aren't allowed to fix musical instruments until you've gone through your apprenticeship and journeyman's year.)
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