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66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

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Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#251

Post by mmmmmbop »

ChatGTP wrote: post #195
Moldoteck wrote: post #147

Regardless of what you think, in the best path is being an eu citizen, work in us(some high paying job like IT) for 5-10 years, return in eu with huge cash, buy a home, work some more chill years for minimal pension and happily retire. Eu is nice to retire if you are eu citizen and have enough cash(by either working some years in us or remotely for us conpanies but a bit less pay)

Do you pay tax in Europe while in the US, or just do the parasitical thing?

How would you go about paying tax in Europe while in the US? The European countries I'm familiar with will not consider you a tax resident while living abroad, so they won't allow you to pay taxes.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#252

Post by FirmwareBurner »

janosdebugs wrote: post #230
throw0101b wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I can't just get fired without cause. And if I do get laid off, I have 3 months of grace period, plus potentially years of unemployment money. Which causes companies to be very slow in hiring people, because if business turns they have less flexibility. European countries have some of the highest (youth) unemployment rates in the OECD: * https://data.oecd.org/unemp/youth-unemployment-rate.htm * https://www.oe…

In Austria AFAIK one can get fired without cause, but if I'm reading this correctly, there doesn't seem to be a massive difference in unemployment against the EU baseline. (Am I reading this right?)

That part is true, in Austria and afaik in Switzerland and Denmark too, you don't need a reason to fire someone.

You just give them their notice period whenever you feel like it and you're done with them, no need to PIP them or look for reasons to let them go.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#253

Post by stop50 »

xetifafa wrote: post #144
stop50 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consecutive sick days. If you got in the icu because of corona for 5 weeks and the month after that because you got into a car crash for 4 weeks the employer has to pay for all the 9 weeks.

Yes, but my employer can fire me (in some cases) if I am sick for more than 30 days in a year. https://www.wirtschaftsforum.de/tipps/welche-anzahl-an-krank...

Not for beeing sick for 30 days in a year.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#254

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

throw0101b wrote: post #206
cloogshicer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I live in a big European city. You basically don't need a car - pretty much anything within the city is reachable in about 30min, and public transit is comfy. Also, I have a public transit ticket that allows me to travel the entire country for a year, which only cost about 1000€. Yes, salaries are lower, but I also don't have to save anything to get my kids through university, or keep emergency funds for hea…

> Also, I can't just get fired without cause. And if I do get laid off, I have 3 months of grace period, plus potentially years of unemployment money. Which causes companies to be very slow in hiring people, because if business turns they have less flexibility. European countries have some of the highest (youth) unemployment rates in the OECD: * https://data.oecd.org/unemp/youth-unemployment-rate.htm * https://www.oe…

> Which causes companies to be very slow in hiring people, because if business turns they have less flexibility.

This is not entirely true. They are more considerate in hiring which means layoffs, including mass layoffs, happen more rarely as they have consequences.

But they can fire people (and they do) when things go bad. This is one of most common reasons for firing people. What they cannot do is to fire me today and tomorrow hire someone else to exactly the same things that I was doing unless I was doing something wrong and they justify it.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#255

Post by xetifafa »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #238
xetifafa wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to levels.fyi (if we assume its unbiased) a median dev income is around $82k in Germany vs $168k in the United States. Let's assume the mean is near that as I can't find any stats on median CoL. Also Let's compare two MCOL(?) hip cities: Portland OR and Leipzig. $82k is $4.1k take home (with healthcare) as a single in Germany. $168k is $8.8k take home as a single in Portland. Let's say monthly expenses are…

> Healthcare is included in the net pay for Leipzig, but not Portland. What devs are getting hired for $162k/year without a decent group plan with only a fairly token employee contribution?

I don't know enough about US health insurance to make a good comparison. In Germamy co-pays for doctor visits arent a thing and co-pays for meds are capped at 5-10 EUR.

Also if I go to the hospital and get a surgery or something I don't have a deductible or percentage I have to pay out of pocket.

My understanding of US insurance is that these are almost always a reality plus potentially a monthly premium.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#256

Post by peoplefromibiza »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #246
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Burn out in Europe is still omnipresent and rising these days From what I know, I work for a very large insurance company, it's mostly healthcare department due to consequences of COVID. Which shouldn't have happened, but it id. > This include Germany, the 'chosen child' every proponent points at in these discussions I'm not German and I do not particularly trust Germany, in fact I think it's one of the worst Weste…

>I work 220 days/year and I'm off 145 days, it's pretty standard here if you have a standard contract Where is that, that you get 145 days of vacation?

I've said that I'm off 145 days, not that I have 145 days of paid vacation.

It includes weekends (52 of them), sick leave (paid), thermal treatments (paid), national holidays (paid, unless on a non-working day) and vacation (24 days, paid)

I also get 8 hours of paid permits per month, but I can take at max 4 consecutive hours per day. They are valid for a year, if I haven't used them after that, they get paid and the counter resets.

all of that in Italy.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#257

Post by TrueGeek »

lionkor wrote: post #4

> While the average American is lucky to get 11 vacation days WHAT? Does that count sick days as well, or is that a myth? Here in Germany, I get 30 vacation days per calendar year, plus any sick days, and thats fairly normal. Edit: Sure the absolute salaries here are lower, but the cost of living is vastly different and the social support structures and healthcare are different, too. That should definitely be kept in…

A lot of these comments are saying they get sick days. I’m a senior dev in the US and only one company I’ve worked at in 24 years has given me sick days. One company justified the combined bucket of vacation / sick days by saying it’s more fair to employees that have chronic illness because they don’t have to tell anyone. One company only gave 10 days total (vacation and sick) until you had been there 5 years.

My current company gives me 20 days (combined vacation and sick) but we only get 6 paid holidays.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#258

Post by mmmmmbop »

xetifafa wrote: post #233
jdthedisciple wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely the average dev in the US with your level of skill still makes 2-4x more than you without 2-4x the expenses. Germany may be good to live and get by but not great to actually grow , financially. The whole system is still designed so that you depend on your 800€ gov check in your senior years. Unless your parents already built some wealth it is barely possible to do so in your own lifetime in Germany.

According to levels.fyi (if we assume its unbiased) a median dev income is around $82k in Germany vs $168k in the United States. Let's assume the mean is near that as I can't find any stats on median CoL. Also Let's compare two MCOL(?) hip cities: Portland OR and Leipzig. $82k is $4.1k take home (with healthcare) as a single in Germany. $168k is $8.8k take home as a single in Portland. Let's say monthly expenses are…

There are a few inaccuracies in your analysis. You're applying the levels.fyi median for Germany, which will skew heavily towards jobs in Berlin and Munich, towards Leipzig, a city in East Germany with way less high paying jobs. While levels.fyi doesn't provide a median for Leipzig, only 2 out of 25 entries there are (slightly) above $82k, so I greatly doubt that $82k is a reasonable number for an average engineer in Leipzig.

If we compare the median numbers for Portland and Munich, cities that actually have enough entries to have percentiles on levels.fyi, then the median compensations are $164k vs. $84k. That's $8.7k vs. $4.2k take home. Looking at Numbeo, the equivalent of $2.5k in Portland would be $2.1k in Munich, so that's $6.2k savings in Portland vs. $2.1k in Munich.

To me, that seems pretty significant.

There are two other aspects that can widen the gap. First, at the higher percentiles, the compensation in the US grows much higher than in Germany. Second, US engineers have the option of getting a significant increase in compensation by moving to the Bay Area, Seattle, or NYC, whereas in the EU you can't really go much higher than in Munich.

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#259

Post by ChatGTP »

jakewins wrote: post #250
ChatGTP wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that the majority of Americans aren't software engineers on ridiculous packages right? Real actual engineers who build roads and power grids make way less money and have way less benefits while IMO doing much more important work than 90% of software engineers even understand. Please take into account the real world before commenting on how good things are for everyone?

Before you write these holier-than-though, I-know-the-plight-of-the-common-man comments: check your intuition, are the things they told us in school growing up in Northern Europe still true? I used SE salaries because this is HN. What does a ”real world” worker actually make? If you look up the national median salaries you will find the median US worker makes more than the median German household , or more than twice…

I wasn't talking about Northern Europeans, I was talking about the fact software engineers in America have some of the most cushy, out of touch with reality packages in the world...I was responding too:

So after correcting for vacation, US engineers make about twice German counterparts

"Both will include full health benefits etc."

What I'm saying is that for a lot of people In America this isn't the case and it's those people who would benefit from more time off, especially because there job consists of more than sitting on HN for 50% of the day...

Re: 66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

#260

Post by anotherhue »

throw0101b wrote: post #206
cloogshicer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I live in a big European city. You basically don't need a car - pretty much anything within the city is reachable in about 30min, and public transit is comfy. Also, I have a public transit ticket that allows me to travel the entire country for a year, which only cost about 1000€. Yes, salaries are lower, but I also don't have to save anything to get my kids through university, or keep emergency funds for hea…

> Also, I can't just get fired without cause. And if I do get laid off, I have 3 months of grace period, plus potentially years of unemployment money. Which causes companies to be very slow in hiring people, because if business turns they have less flexibility. European countries have some of the highest (youth) unemployment rates in the OECD: * https://data.oecd.org/unemp/youth-unemployment-rate.htm * https://www.oe…

In Ireland at least, there's a probationary period of up to six months where you can be fired at will.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment-...

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