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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

#111

Post by BrandonM »

varjag wrote: post #73
BrandonM wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then there is stuff like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index . Wow, that article looks pretty bogus. Here are their factors: 2. Family life: Divorce rate. My parents are divorced and they both seem pretty happy. This metric seems very biased and not clearly beneficial. Is it better to keep an unhappy marriage together or to create two new happier marriages? 3. Community life: country has either h…

> 9. Gender equality: Measured using ratio of average male and female earnings. Terrible. Does this even factor in number of hours worked? It certainly doesn't account for differences in the work being performed or for cultural differences. This is still a useful metric, cultural reasons or not. Half of the world's population are women.

The problem I have with it is that it implies quality-of-life is tied to earnings. That's like saying a single mother working two jobs has a better quality of life than a rich socialite. I know plenty of women who are perfectly happy to be homemakers, work part-time during the day, or teach so that they can enjoy family life.

"Gender equality" the way they measure it here seems to be saying that men and women should ideally live the same. Freedom of choice and equal rights is what matters, and I don't feel that this metric even comes close to measuring that.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#112

Post by ShabbyDoo »

akadruid wrote: post #108
sqrt17 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably right about the labor-saving techniques. In Germany, you get gardeners with automatic leaf blowers (i.e., faster, but more noise), and with a whole slew of bottom-tier jobs (such as supermarket baggers) missing. The car industry is purely based on robots and automation - which is probably the same in the US.

I suspect this must be a European thing then. I'm in London and I'd assumed that leaf blowers were a universal thing, and I had to google "supermarket bagger" - it seems like a weird gimmick, is this common?

If anything, older Americans lament the reduction in the level of grocery store service over the years. While most stores (at least around Cleveland) have baggers, there is only one higher-end grocery which still loads one's bags in his car for him. The customer leaves his cart by the exit, drives his car up to the store, and some teenagers load the bags into the trunk ("boot" for those in the UK?).

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#113

Post by ugh »

yardie wrote: post #106
halostatue wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A discussion I had with a German couple in Verona while I was on vacation suggested that German companies don't generally give sick days and that the mandated vacation time had to be used for sick days. Was what I heard correct? As a comparison, the American company I work for (in Canada) provides a default of two weeks vacation with two weeks PEL (Personal Emergency Leave) that can be used for doctors' appointments,…

They don't have sick days. When you are sick you are sick it could be 1 day or 6 months. They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off. So while they may miss out on your productivity, financially, they've lost little. As an American I've encountered far too many Americans coming into work with just "a little cold" and getting the rest of the office sick. Dragging everyone else down with the…

That’s not correct. Your employer has to continue paying you for up to six weeks. (You generally need a doctor’s note after three days.) If you are sick longer than that your health insurance has to pay you some of your wage, usually 70 percent of your gross wage and at most 90 percent of your net wage.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#114

Post by ulf »

yardie wrote: post #106
halostatue wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A discussion I had with a German couple in Verona while I was on vacation suggested that German companies don't generally give sick days and that the mandated vacation time had to be used for sick days. Was what I heard correct? As a comparison, the American company I work for (in Canada) provides a default of two weeks vacation with two weeks PEL (Personal Emergency Leave) that can be used for doctors' appointments,…

They don't have sick days. When you are sick you are sick it could be 1 day or 6 months. They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off. So while they may miss out on your productivity, financially, they've lost little. As an American I've encountered far too many Americans coming into work with just "a little cold" and getting the rest of the office sick. Dragging everyone else down with the…

"They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off."

That is not true. The employer pays the salary for six weeks of sickness. After that, the health insurance provider takes over. I believe that the american sick-day-model could never work here because of unions and other employee-interest organizations. So it is not really up to the company, they have to pay you your salary and cannot take vacation time away from you because of sickness. However, ongoing sickness can be a reason to fire an employee.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#115

Post by halostatue »

ulf wrote: post #114
yardie wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have sick days. When you are sick you are sick it could be 1 day or 6 months. They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off. So while they may miss out on your productivity, financially, they've lost little. As an American I've encountered far too many Americans coming into work with just "a little cold" and getting the rest of the office sick. Dragging everyone else down with the…

"They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off." That is not true. The employer pays the salary for six weeks of sickness. After that, the health insurance provider takes over. I believe that the american sick-day-model could never work here because of unions and other employee-interest organizations. So it is not really up to the company, they have to pay you your salary and cannot take vac…

Thank you for the clarification. The situation is more complex for most high-tech employees in the U.S. in any case given short-term and long-term illness benefits.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#116

Post by cdr »

cdr wrote: post #96
yummyfajitas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

"Max Klein" isn't a real person, and is hardly a reputable source.

Context: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353307

"Max Klein" sent me an e-mail essentially inviting me to 'take it outside', I am amused.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#117

Post by varjag »

BrandonM wrote: post #111
varjag wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 9. Gender equality: Measured using ratio of average male and female earnings. Terrible. Does this even factor in number of hours worked? It certainly doesn't account for differences in the work being performed or for cultural differences. This is still a useful metric, cultural reasons or not. Half of the world's population are women.

The problem I have with it is that it implies quality-of-life is tied to earnings. That's like saying a single mother working two jobs has a better quality of life than a rich socialite. I know plenty of women who are perfectly happy to be homemakers, work part-time during the day, or teach so that they can enjoy family life. "Gender equality" the way they measure it here seems to be saying that men and women should…

Money is a good first approximation of freedom and independence however. And while the extremes you used to illustrate might indeed be uncommon, when we talk about statistics in magnitude of national populations they are not going to distort overall picture.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#118

Post by ptomato »

auston wrote: post #53
yummyfajitas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Contracting or salaried? Because that's very low at least for contract Ruby developers in the US.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#119

Post by wil2k »

lionhearted wrote: post #69
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…

This matches my limited experience. I toured a German factory once - their level of technology and processes are astounding. I watched a car getting painted - it was on a catwalk over running water with turbines to capture some energy from the process, and bristles on the turbines to take most of the paint out and recycle the water. The efficiencies are enormous, technology investment very high. I haven't been throug…

I know what you mean. I once had a tour at a Volkswagen factory. It was jaw dropping and amazing how well thought out all processes were planned and managed.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#120

Post by Vivtek »

eru wrote: post #109
Vivtek wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in the suburbs of Stuttgart, and the public transit to the other suburb where I worked was excellent. I usually biked, just for the convenience and because it was healthier, but the comparison with the situation in most of the United States is mindblowing.

Yes. That's why I said most. It's definitely doable not to have a car in Germany. My family did not have one, when I lived there.

Well - I bought a car when I was there, too. It's too useful. I guess my overall point is that in Germany, unlike most places in the US, makes it possible to live without one.

Here in Indiana, without a car you don't work. Or buy groceries. Period. You are at the mercy of your friends who do have cars, and it's a real burden for the poor.

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