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Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

tradearabia.com

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Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#61
post #46
post #44

Question for European workers: Do you feel that social services help close some of that gap in pay? Raising a kid in the USA has become massively expensive. Health care costs, education costs, child care costs means parents can easily spent 50-100k a year on children alone. My partner wants to move to the Netherlands, but it would mean a massive pay cut for me long term. Their argument is that children will be cheape…

If you want more than 2 kids it’s rarely feasible in USA, but not an issue for Europe. No kids, USA hands down. One kid, comparable. Two kids, Europe looks better but USA is still possible. Three kids, you need free childcare somewhere to make it work. Remember that it is 50 to 100k in after expenses, so at highest tax bracket you need to make almost double that to pay for childcare. Finally, work culture in Europe i…

> If you want more than 2 kids it’s rarely feasible in USA

What? Anyone can do so if they wanted. There are plenty of people with 3+ kids in america.

> but not an issue for Europe.

And yet much of europe has a lower fertility rate.

> Remember that it is 50 to 100k in after expenses

What are you spending 50 to 100k on?

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#62
post #44

Question for European workers: Do you feel that social services help close some of that gap in pay? Raising a kid in the USA has become massively expensive. Health care costs, education costs, child care costs means parents can easily spent 50-100k a year on children alone. My partner wants to move to the Netherlands, but it would mean a massive pay cut for me long term. Their argument is that children will be cheape…

For an European, it's really hard to compare the value of social services, especially healthcare. The US healthcare costs seem to be highly variable depending on person/provider/medical history, and the whole pricing model is incomprehensible. Even if I could get a real quote, I still couldn't know what quality of care I'm actually going to get. Over here we keep hearing horror stories like "I stubbed my toe, and the invoice for Tylenol has bankrupted my family", and it's hard to know what's the real likelihood of such problems. It's hard to put monetary value of having a peace of mind that I can call an ambulance any time anywhere, and I won't be fighting any stupid invoices. I never have to worry about some "out of network doctor", because there is no such thing.

There are other things that are hard to judge. I have guaranteed paid holidays and sick days. People serving me in restaurants have a living(ish) wage without tips, and also have guaranteed sick days (it's absolutely disgusting to think people could be coming sick to work, especially in the food industry!). There are higher food standards, and there aren't subsidized processed corn derivatives added to everything. I have plenty of consumer protections (over here saying "I know my EU rights" in the Apple Store magically gets you an extra year of warranty).

I can live in many cities that have competent public transport, and basic shops and amenities within walking or biking distance, with roads prioritizing pedestrian safety. I could earn more and buy a luxury car, but I can already take a train, and read or have a nap while it's "fully self-driving" to the destination, bypassing traffic.

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dubai has far looser work visa and banking laws. And low taxation. Infrastructure may not be as cheap but it is accessible. If your goal is to get in make money and leave Dubai might be a lot more approachable from both company owner and employee perspective.

>If your goal is to get in make money and leave Dubai might be a lot more approachable from both company owner and employee perspective. Sure, but if we are talking about a place to move to and live the US is definitely my preferred choice.

Let’s be real though: the US may -very- quickly move in the bad direction, rights-wise, come November. The SCOTUS has also demonstrated its willingness to overturn decades of precedent as soon as they sufficiently tilted that way ideologically. I don’t know if you can strongly count on the US remaining a safe home base when it comes to rights for gay people, minorities, and women, at least in the medium term. I’d use caution.

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#64
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want more than 2 kids it’s rarely feasible in USA, but not an issue for Europe. No kids, USA hands down. One kid, comparable. Two kids, Europe looks better but USA is still possible. Three kids, you need free childcare somewhere to make it work. Remember that it is 50 to 100k in after expenses, so at highest tax bracket you need to make almost double that to pay for childcare. Finally, work culture in Europe i…

May I ask what you're basing this on? Obviously cost of living in the US varies a lot per region.

OP says it’s the regions where child care costs 50 to 100k, so I am basing it on that.

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#65
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want more than 2 kids it’s rarely feasible in USA, but not an issue for Europe. No kids, USA hands down. One kid, comparable. Two kids, Europe looks better but USA is still possible. Three kids, you need free childcare somewhere to make it work. Remember that it is 50 to 100k in after expenses, so at highest tax bracket you need to make almost double that to pay for childcare. Finally, work culture in Europe i…

> If you want more than 2 kids it’s rarely feasible in USA What? Anyone can do so if they wanted. There are plenty of people with 3+ kids in america. > but not an issue for Europe. And yet much of europe has a lower fertility rate. > Remember that it is 50 to 100k in after expenses What are you spending 50 to 100k on?

Anyone can do it. I am saying it is better in Europe to do it than in high cost of living areas of USA.

OP says 50 to 100k, so probably they live in high cost of living area.

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#66
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask what you're basing this on? Obviously cost of living in the US varies a lot per region.

OP says it’s the regions where child care costs 50 to 100k, so I am basing it on that.

As someone who has paid for childcare for 12 years in the US and never got anywhere close to half of the lower end of that amount I would be very curious about which regions they are referring to. Maybe they are referring to 5+ young kids?

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#67

The number one thing about the US is the sheer hope and belief in the future. Europe, maybe apart from France, surprisingly, is depressing and nobody thinks the future is bright.

I’ve been in the US for decades. My hope for the future of the country has faded to almost nothing in recent years.

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#68

The number one thing about the US is the sheer hope and belief in the future. Europe, maybe apart from France, surprisingly, is depressing and nobody thinks the future is bright.

I think the future is pretty bright here in Spain. More importantly, I think things are really fine as they are. We just have to keep the climate deteriorating in check because being in a hot country we're really starting to feel that here. But overall yeah things are fine. Not seeing great pies in the sky for our future but no big sinkholes either.

Are you sure it's not because of Spain qualifying for the final? /jk

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#69
post #10
post #8

The underlying thesis of the article is that high salaries in the Gulf will outweigh the downsides of working in low-rule-of-law authoritarian states with onerously rigid managerial and social structures, which ... might work out for some folks, but if you haven't worked with Gulf-domiciled companies before I wouldn't recommend signing a long-term contract before testing out those waters.

I was under the impression that for ordinary commercial stuff that won’t touch politics that Dubai at least was pretty tame? Or at least fairly low on the corruption index.

Yes. I was stationed there for work for 2 years by my employer, overall a good experience. Before going my overall view of Dubai was pretty negative, now I would say it’s slightly positive.

They are essentially on the right trajectory.

Re: Low salary likely to cause exodus of European tech talent

#70
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita, Germany has about 60% (31.4/10K vs 19.5/10K) higher homeless rate. I was surprised myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ho...

The Germans are really really good at documenting things. In the US documenting things stuff is often in the hands of people who look good if the numbers are low so... Also, nobody there cares about the homeless. In Germany they all still have social security so they need to be registered.

>The Germans are really really good at documenting things.

Citation needed.

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