Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more • Hacker News Board

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#141

Post by rglullis » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #110

rglullis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind this is only income tax . If you put deductions like health insurance (mandatory, and also dependent on income level) my take-home pay was indeed less than 50%.

Right, but that money isn't used for the benefits of "people who don't give a flying toss" - you'll get a value out of it (health insurance). Furthermore you'd also need to take into account all the costs you can set off against tax liability.

Paying health insurance is apart from the income tax. So in this particular case your income tax money is not getting you anything in return, healthcare-wise.

Worst in case of health insurance, the amount you pay is dependent on your income, not your actual actuarial risk. This means that, indeed, the healthy people working are subsidizing the costs of the ones "who don't give a flying toss".

And don't get me started on things like Künstlersozialkasse...

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#142

Post by joenot443 » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #66

Waterluvian wrote: post #39

I worked for a Canadian company that's absolutely hemmoraging talent because they refuse to pay well. I'm now paid about 50% more to work remotely for a US company in an environment that is far far more fitting of my life goals of being with my kids as they grow up. It's beyond bizarre to watch them continue to refuse to pay anyone properly despite their imminent collapse.

It's bizarre. Even Amazon Seattle pays 2x the salaries of Amazon Vancouver, even although they are separated by only 200km and are the same company! I ask every Canadian developer I meet, why are you still here? I like living in Canada, so I work remotely even although I don't really like remote work. Instant 70% raise.

Do you have any tips or anecdotes on finding remote US work as a Canadian?

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#143

Post by petercooper » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #73

merinowool wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> you have to give away sometimes more than half of it Where? This is the tax in Germany for example: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/ES...

In the UK the marginal tax rate between £100000-£123700 is 60% as you gradually lose your tax-free allowance, so even though the tax is technically 40%, you're losing another 20% at the other "end" of your income - https://eqinvestors.co.uk/library/avoiding-the-60-percent-ta... .. Admittedly this never means 50%+ of your entire salary is tax (you keep 59.6% net of even a £1M salary, for example) but is a real pain point for earners around the £100K level.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#144

Post by chiefgeek » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

emilfihlman wrote: post #30

sametmax wrote: post #11

And if you think it's bad, it's even worse in Europe. Taking the French example: I'm an freelancer, but I used to have a contract with an American company. They gave me 3x the salary most of my French colleagues would get, while keeping the exact same social advantages (they paid me through a French branch). However, to them, the salary was twice lower than what they would have paid for the same guy in the Valley. No…

Exactly this. All tech companies in Finland are like "We can't find enough competent coders!" and newspapers are publishing that as is. Well, no shit, because your pay is shit.

Steve Chandler has a great piece on "How to versus want to" that is somewhat relevant. People will say they don't know "HOW" to find talent, when in reality they just don't "WANT" to find it.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#145

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #125

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any difficulty in working across the border like that? I work for a Canadian company due to having my roots here and find the thought of dealing with remote work in another country intimidating. Is it much hassle?

It's been completely painless because the company is using a Canadian company to handle my salary and tax info, and they got me Canadian extended health insurance. It's actually kind of awesome. They bump up my Canadian salary to match their USD official salary any time the exchange rate goes bonkers. So the more Trump does Trump, the more I'm paid.

Other than the remote work (which I imagine can be isolating and leave you feeling less effective), that sounds like the perfect set up.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#146

Post by at-fates-hands » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

So then, the basic premise here is:

Employers: "We can't find good devs/workers!"

Devs/Workers: "Well, you don't pay enough!"

My advice to employers is what a lot of companies started doing when there was a gold rush of developers and people were scarce. Find a few average devs or newbies with little or no coding experience, train them into your "system" and then work to promote them up into senior positions and give them a reason to stick around.

My advice to devs is get a role at a company, get into the habit of being able to code on a daily basis, grow your skills, then jump ship, or angle your skills for an increase in pay. The important part is coding every day and getting better at your craft. Sometimes getting paid less and acquiring skills is more important for the long run than simply turning offers down because you think it's not a good salary or hourly rate.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#147

Post by swebs » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #65

emilfihlman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. All tech companies in Finland are like "We can't find enough competent coders!" and newspapers are publishing that as is. Well, no shit, because your pay is shit.

> All tech companies in Finland are like "We can't find enough competent coders!" and newspapers are publishing that as is. To me, if a tech company claims in a newspaper that it cannot find competent coders, to me it says that they are uncapable of detecting talent. Which means "we have a really incompetent human ressource team". This is clearly not something that I would like journalists to print if I were a compan…

>To me, if a tech company claims in a newspaper that it cannot find competent coders, to me it says that they are uncapable of detecting talent.

Nah, you see the pattern in pretty much every first world country.

1. Government makes law protecting citizens saying companies must hire local unless as a last resort

2. Big tech companies post job listings with unreasonable qualification requirements, while offering wages so low that few people would accept

3. Nobody applies/accepts offers from those companies

4. Companies start whining to the government about how they can't find workers (at these wages) and that we need to increase the amount of visas from India/Bangladesh/wherever.

5. Government falls for it hook, line, and sinker. More cheap foreign labor is approved.

6. The market value for all programmers in the region drops.

Repeat steps 1 through 6 until the average programmer salary hits minimum wage. If local citizens resist at any point, just accuse them of being racist.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#148

Post by athenot » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #130

muse900 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My example comes from Greece where I reside for the past 9 months. People owning touristic buisnesses on the islands are moaning about how much they need more staff and can't find any, and they are arguing why younger people tend to not work and just receive benefits instead of going to work. The argument here that they won't understand though is that, 1st they are paying very low. They are all willing to pay the min…

Interesting, would this be a case that shows that basic income wouldn't work?

It's not the same model. Presumably the €400 are forfeited when earing €500 as a salary. One of the premises of basic income is that working more doesn't cancel out any benefits.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#149

Post by commandlinefan » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #86

merinowool wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> and yet you have to give away sometimes more than half of it It's not being given away. How are the roads, police, schools, defense budgets funded? > so that people who don't give a flying toss get their benefits I just checked. The US and the UK both have a 4.1% unemployment rate. Many of those people are unable to work at all. our social security net means that if you're disabled you shouldn't end up honeless. No…

> How are the roads, police, schools, defense budgets funded?

I would assume the same way they're funded in America, but for a lot less and with better results.

Re: Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

#150

Post by PaulRobinson » Wed, Jul 11, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

EthanHeilman wrote: post #126

koolba wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The unemployment benefit is 400+ euros per month. So tell me who in their right minds would go to work for 500 euros or even 800 euros, whilst they have to spend petrol to get from and to work, work prolly 10+ hours a day, in the sun most likely cause thats what means tourism industry, There are always people who don't just want to live off the dole. Also a lot of the people who complain about crappy entry level wa…

>That's kind of the norm at any job. I'm curious what alternative you propose, a commune where workers decide on their own what they'll be working on? Pretty much all the software engineering jobs have worked at have given me quite a bit of autonomy. At least within software engineering organizations the purpose of a manager should be to make sure workers have the necessary resources and coordination, but they should…

I think you mean "autonomy", and at larger firms, you're going to have to work with others. The ideal is collaboration, but you don't normally get to choose what you work on, your management does.