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Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

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Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#241

Post by TheGallopedHigh »

sneak wrote: post #236
dheera wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying their entire rent is a hard sell, but I would think it reasonable to pay for an employee to have a setup at home that would be as good as they would get at a modern office. That includes things like: * office-quality furniture -- sit/stand desks, chairs, videoconference equipment * computers, monitors, whatever you would provide for them at work * subsidies for lunch and snacks if it's the norm in your locale…

The alternative is that they could just pay their devs 5x what devs would get paid in Europe, which is where this article is about, which is already being done. Then the staff member can outfit their workspace as they see fit.

The cost of living is not being factored in here. Falafel wrap in Berlin is 2-3 EURO. In Switzerland it can be 10-12 eur...

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#242

Post by DangitBobby »

mindvirus wrote: post #219
dleslie wrote: post #133

Canada has a tax break for those that work from home: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individ...

The USA does too, but the trouble is it has to be exclusively used for working from home- so you can't have a guest room you use as an office most of the time, which is particularly tricky in cities. I wonder if that'll change in the future with more WFH.

The deduction in the US is no longer available to most people working from home since Trump's tax breaks [1]. And even if it were, many people would not get it because it wouldn't be worth losing the standard deduction over.

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/03/23/wor...

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#243

Post by 082349872349872 »

Hokusai wrote: post #173
CaptainZapp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences, such as higher rents, but who knows. That's not that easy. While Switzerland doesn't do rent control per se and there can be regional differences depending on scarcity of real estate for rent a landlord is rather restricted in raising rent once a contract is signed. The only reasons why a rent can be raised are: - Additional investments into an apartment, but t…

> My ethical compass would feel it's wrong to squeeze additional benefits from an arrangement I have seen others thinking like that, and then become very sore when they are fired in an economic downturn. They feel that "it is not fair" because they did as much as they could for their company, the company did not care. Is that different in Switzerland? Has it a similar culture to Japan where firing an employee is the…

An example of layoff differences between CH and US: unemployment in April climbed to 3,3%, with the doomsayers worrying what might happen if it eventually goes to an (unprecedented) 7% due to coronavirus. (there are many other differences; eg swiss don't take their rifles to demonstrations)

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#244

Post by vinay427 »

hocuspocus wrote: post #106
ramblerman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to SF, Zurich is 50% cheaper in rent, but pretty much more expensive across the board for everything else. From Numbeo: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

After taxes and rent, "everything else" is fairly insignificant in practice, even though both cities are very expensive. Also I would be careful about numbers from Numbeo, I certainly don't pay $50/kg for beef.

I moved from SF to Zurich, so just to add another data point to corroborate this, you can live relatively cheaply here while I really couldn't in SF because housing doesn't really have a cheap (and adequately safe) alternative. Meanwhile, here the "everything else" is actually not very high if you limit or more carefully plan eating out, buy groceries with some consideration of cost (budget variants are often less than half the price of "standard" ones), etc.

Health insurance can be expensive while for many of the people on HN it would be included in employer benefits in SF, but it's still not that bad. Last time I checked, the average payment in Switzerland for adults was $250 USD or so.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#245

Post by ihaveajob »

mehrdadn wrote: post #10

I'm confused, what is the additional expense that employees are incurring by being home? Don't they pay the same rent either way?

Supposedly you need a reserved space for work. The US has (had?) a similar home-office tax deduction (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...).

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#247

Post by [deleted] »

code_duck wrote: post #189
papeda wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess there are plenty of people in high-rent areas who'd need larger and more expensive living quarters to work from home long-term.

If they previously chose those areas for convenient location in regards their work, now they're free to move anywhere they'd like.

[deleted]

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#248

Post by WalterGR »

code_duck wrote: post #189
papeda wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess there are plenty of people in high-rent areas who'd need larger and more expensive living quarters to work from home long-term.

If they previously chose those areas for convenient location in regards their work, now they're free to move anywhere they'd like.

“Free”? Do you have absolutely no attachments to where you live? People have social support networks - friends, families, places that they go to, classes they’re taking. Children who go to schools and have friends there and go to parks for play dates and birthdays.

Those are just one or two of the social costs. How much does it cost in real money to relocate a family of 3 or 4?

People who live close to work in an expensive area have traded money for time. Higher salary; shorter commute. They may not have the resources to move.

IMO, that’s a strange definition of free.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#249

Post by jeffrallen »

Draiken wrote: post #240
dahfizz wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a (not so fine) line between looking after yourself and being a greedy jerk. I find that a little bit of grace goes a long way. Ask for a raise when you deserve it, absolutely. But if you ruthlessly try to extract every last penny from your employer, they will do the same to you. Have you ever browsed HN at work? Have you ever left just a few minutes before 5? I don't want my workplace to be a battleground o…

Maybe you have a very good and ethical employer, but my anecdotal evidence tells me it's not the rule, it's the exception. Why is it okay for an owner to try to squeeze every penny he can out of his employees but not okay for the employees to do it? The real problem is that the company normally holds the leverage, so the employee has no recourse, no matter how "ethically" wrong the situation may be. Not to mention a…

> Why is it okay for an owner to try to squeeze every penny he can out of his employees but not okay for the employees to do it?

An eye for an eye and all the world is eventually blind.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#250

Post by srle »

mrep wrote: post #94
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences, such as higher rents, but who knows. For Amazon's reputation for internal cost-cutting (such as displaying the pricing on computer peripherals in vending-machines in their SLU offices), Amazon makes me scratch my head for building-up their HQ in one of the most expensive cities to buy land in the world - ditto Facebook in Menlo Park. Why didn't Amazon choose Ke…

Seattle wasn't as expensive back in the day and if I recall correctly, Bezos actually chose to move to seattle and start Amazon there for cost reasons (I think taxes were a big part of that). Moving an entire headquarters is expensive and did you forget about the HQ2 plan to expand elsewhere?

Seattle is still cheap for what it is tbh, a bunch of my friends have moved there and I feel like I’m getting completely fucking robbed by staying in Toronto (shouts out to covid hitting pandemic status just as I was preparing to job hunt).

Lower housings costs, significantly higher salary, much lower taxes, and better weather along with more interesting/nicer outdoorsy stuff makes Seattle probably my #1 choice for where I’d like to live right now.

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