66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by mmmmmbop » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 1:23 PM UTC

xetifafa wrote: post #255

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Basically, good health plans like the ones you would get in a tech job will have either no or very low monthly premiums ($0-$50/month), and pretty low deductibles ($1k) and out-of-pocket maximums ($2k-$2.5k), meaning no matter what happens, you'll never pay more than $2.5k for your healthcare in a given year.

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

#262

Post by auselen » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

glimshe wrote: post #241

EoinB wrote: post #142

I was born and educated in Scotland, worked in the UK for a decade or so, then moved to the US and worked for big tech for 15 years while living in the US and becoming a US citizen. I then chose to move back to Scotland, where I continue to work for the same US big tech company but get paid UK wages with UK employment benefits. So, I've lived significant portions of my life on both sides. Here in the UK, I get 29 day…

I work in a major tech company and never check email outside work hours, which I cap at 40 hours a week. I never work weekends, never check work during weekends or vacations. I make much more than my European peers, have a better car, better weather and bigger house. I have 25 days of paid vacation. While this is better than the US average, I don't know a single person in my friends group wanting to trade the US for…

Then you have SOs, kids.. do they have the same standards, and is that guaranteed to stay?

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

#263

Post by pleoxy » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 1:33 PM UTC

orwin wrote: post #148

emptysongglass wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries are so much lower than our American counterparts you'll be working right up until our government mandated retirement age, which is increasing. Our economic growth across the EU is stagnant. These are not things to be celebrated.

We not only have a better life expectancy (6years for men?), we also have a better 'good health' expectancy. Economic growth is stagnant because energy production and energy import are stagnant. This has little to do with policy. It's 2011 all over again, when we heard all sort of 'southern Europeans are lazy/corrupt' and other shit. I even bought it like a good child. No. Southern Europeans economies used to depend…

> Economic growth is stagnant because energy production and energy import are stagnant. This has little to do with policy.

I can't think of an area of the economy anywhere that is more policy based than energy.

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

#264

Post by curiousWaste » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

panda888888 wrote: post #179

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…

The even crazier part is maternity leave, or the lack of it. The US government requires that women who have been at their job for more than one year get 12 weeks of unpaid time off. But many people can't afford to not be paid, so they don't take the full amount. Women who have been at their job for less than one year legally get 0 days off. Less than 25% of US women have any type of paid maternity leave.

Yet, birth rate in USA is significantly higher than in Finland for example

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

#265

Post by xetifafa » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

mmmmmbop wrote: post #258

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…

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…

Thanks for your feedback.

The goal was to compare MCOL cities. Maybe Leipzig wasn't the right one for that, but Munich is one of the most expensive cities in Germany.

Munich vs SF, Seattle or NY might be a fairer comparison.

Switzerland generally has higher pay than Munich.

Also how hard is it to get a $168k dev job in Portland vs $84k in Munich? I think $84k in Munich is significantly easier.

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

#266

Post by xetifafa » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 1:47 PM UTC

jdthedisciple wrote: post #240

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…

So an extra ~4k take home. Invest that on the side and you'll have built a fortune within a decade and a half, while your German friend has nothing significant in savings and is still living hand to mouth. And we haven't even mentioned the differences in career steepness : After a few years it's not 80k vs 160k anymore, but more like 90-100k vs 200k+. Also if you compare the best places in each country than you are l…

Yep that's definitely true. Just comes down to what's important to you. You can fall hard and fast in the states but that's a lot less likely to happen in Germany.

The 4k extra take home is more significant if you move to a LCOL place once you have acquired your fortune, not if you stay in the States. I would argue things like FIRE or Lean-FIRE are only slightly easier to achieve in the US than in Germany because of the comparably HCOL.

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

#267

Post by Mordisquitos » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

apexalpha wrote: post #208

Mordisquitos wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I'm amazed at the very idea of having a specific number of available sick days which I understand is the standard in the US. How on Earth is that something that is expected to be planned and accounted for by the employee? How can one "run out of" sick days? How do I see stories about US workers "donating" their unused sick leave days to a colleague with cancer or other long illness? I'm too lazy to look up the…

You don't run out of sick days, if you're sick you're sick. You just run out of paid sick days. The employer will just drop you.

Do you mean "drop you" as in stop paying for you while you're off sick? Or is it "drop you" as in simply show you (an emailed picture of) the door and terminate your employment?

Both sound bad to me, but I can to a certain extent understand the logic behind the first option in terms of the financial interests of the company. I can definitely see a "Sorry Ashley, you're out of paid sick days so we won't be paying your salary this month, we can't afford paying for nothing. I hope you recover and can come back to work with us soon!". The way we make up for this in Spain (and I'm assuming in varying similar ways in other countries) is by having the Social Security start taking charge of growing percentages of the employee's salary during sick leave as it prolongs in time, so as to reduce the impact on the business.

The second "drop you" sounds much worse though. You have an illness or an accident bad enough that it exhausts your paid sick days, so your employer simply sacks you out of impatience? And what happens to the employment-dependent health insurance which (I assume) was what was covering you on your long sick leave? "Sorry Ashley, you're out of paid sick days so we're firing you. I hope you recover enough from your severe TBE before your savings run out so you can find a new job. Also I hope you weren't depending too much on our health insurance plan for rehab. Good luck!".

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

#268

Post by jtakkala » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

basisword wrote: post #173

jtakkala wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of that, there are roles in FAANG companies and Silicon Valley that give ~5 weeks PTO. For example, Facebook historically has had a fairly good PTO policy in the US, and for the past several years gives at least 23 days (plus there's the whole extra month off every 5 years). I heard that as a result of that, Google had to increase their PTO in recent years.

23 days isn’t good though. The fact that that’s being held up as a shining beacon says everything. 25 days + about 10 public holidays is the average here. I’m at a company that’s offering 30 days + 10 public holidays + 4 company wide days.i would much rather the days than a higher salary. At a certain point the extra disposable income isn’t worth it when you don’t have time to enjoy it.

I left out the company-wide holidays, which in 2022 amounted to 4, and the 10+ public holidays.

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

#269

Post by mmmmmbop » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

xetifafa wrote: post #265

mmmmmbop wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks for your feedback. The goal was to compare MCOL cities. Maybe Leipzig wasn't the right one for that, but Munich is one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Munich vs SF, Seattle or NY might be a fairer comparison. Switzerland generally has higher pay than Munich. Also how hard is it to get a $168k dev job in Portland vs $84k in Munich? I think $84k in Munich is significantly easier.

With the same calculation, it'd be $9.2k monthly savings in San Francisco vs. 2.1k savings in Munich.

I forgot about Switzerland. Arguably it's not EU, but it's still a place that EU citizens can easily go to.

Given that both Portland and Munich have 1000+ entries on levels.fyi and the given numbers are the calculated median, I'd say it's a fair assumption that getting the median comp in both locales would be equally hard.

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

#270

Post by glimshe » Sat, Aug 26, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

auselen wrote: post #262

glimshe wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a major tech company and never check email outside work hours, which I cap at 40 hours a week. I never work weekends, never check work during weekends or vacations. I make much more than my European peers, have a better car, better weather and bigger house. I have 25 days of paid vacation. While this is better than the US average, I don't know a single person in my friends group wanting to trade the US for…

Then you have SOs, kids.. do they have the same standards, and is that guaranteed to stay?

Nothing in life is guaranteed. I have contingencies in place to withstand life events, but there is no place on Earth where you can guarantee your future.