81–90 of 111 posts
First maybe have a 2-3 month probation period like most of the continent instead of 6?
Take today’s date: if you quit February 1st, you can only start at a new place June 1st! At least 3, but up to 4 months of a continued work relationship is unattractive for both parties I’d say.
(At least that’s the widely used rule; the law only specifies a minimum notice period of 1 month)
I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American, was a bit culture shocked by how little time people worked, and how so many people I met bragged about collecting paid time off for reasons they admitted to making up, which the government enforced all employers must allow. As an employer, I'd be afraid of hiring in countries like Germany for an international workforce if that meant I have to have a patchwork of speci…
Working in germany is just not worth it. For example in this reddit thread(1) someone asked how much you would earn if you work for an us company paying 100 000 dollar per year while living in germany. At the time the thread was written 100 000 dollar were about 91100 euro. After taxes and other things like statutory health insurance you would only have 42.276 euro left (and you still need to put money into your secu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I have acquaintances employed here too. And my wife's case is not a single one. I have a friend who migrated from India and his wife used to work for a pharma/biotech firm back in India and had some temporary work here in Germany, when peak COVID happened, when pharma companies were hiring a lot. She already has a master's degree from India and she has been undergoing further trainings supported by Job center, a…
Amazing. Would you mind disclosing where in Germany you are and what here degree is in?
I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American, was a bit culture shocked by how little time people worked, and how so many people I met bragged about collecting paid time off for reasons they admitted to making up, which the government enforced all employers must allow. As an employer, I'd be afraid of hiring in countries like Germany for an international workforce if that meant I have to have a patchwork of speci…
In Germany, you do have a right to at least 20 days of fully paid leave every year; most companies actually even grant 26-30 days off. And you’ll even have to take a mandatory leave of at least 12 consecutive days once per year. As this affects everyone, you don’t have any career disadvantages by going on a vacation- in fact, it’s normal and expected. Additionally, being on sick leave is very much normal and expected, and (other than in toxic company cultures, exceptions do exist) neither do cause you any disadvantages.
And finally, you cannot be fired without a very good reason, and even then, you have at least a month of notice (the period increases depending on how long you’ve been employed by a company, up to four months for 10 year contracts).
So I think it’s safe to say that Germans do take being on a fully paid leave - either on vacation or sick (and I didn’t even talk about parental leave) - as something granted and natural.
And while the distribution of people trying to avoid work as much as possible is probably the same as in the USA, our baseline is very different. So while it may look like people here take pride in not working, that is definitely a flawed assumption. We just have a different legal system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Working in germany is just not worth it. For example in this reddit thread(1) someone asked how much you would earn if you work for an us company paying 100 000 dollar per year while living in germany. At the time the thread was written 100 000 dollar were about 91100 euro. After taxes and other things like statutory health insurance you would only have 42.276 euro left (and you still need to put money into your secu…
This is not the norm, as the employment modalities in that thread are super strange. If you’re employed by a German entity and your salary is 91.1k€, your take-home income would be around 53.8k€. Put another way - the $100k / 91.1k€ are the Arbeitgeberbrutto, they correspond to 75.5k€ Arbeitnehmerbrutto (the number you’d normally see on your contract). The difference exists because there are employer deductions and e…
I fully disagree. I'm talking about the Arbeitgeberbrutto as it does not make any difference for the employer if he sends the money to you or to the state/health insurance/.... He is already paying it so he would be willing to also pay it to you if he would not have to pay it to the state/health insurance/... So in my opinion it is part of the salary and I think the split into employer deductions and employee deductions just exists to make the contributions appear to be smaller than they actually are.
The post I linked just made it clear to me that salaries aren't that bad in germany compared to other states it is just that we have to pay most of it to the state/health insurance/...
Wait... There's a shortage of labor so the solution is to restrict the supply of labor? Simply from a math perspective (not political) wouldn't going to a 6 day workweek do more to solve the problem?
Instead of a 4-day workweek how about setting reasonable hiring standards so that hundreds of thousands of people out of work, especially non-native German speakers, have a chance of getting past the job application screen. Most jobs, even in tech, in DE currently require good knowledge of German, and "good" is being interpreted as near-native.
As a German, my personal experience does not correspond with this. I know a lot of companies here where people from India or Eastern European countries work and their knowledge of the German language varies widely. But as long as you speak English you get along very well here. And they work at large companies, mid sized companies or startups. Most people in Tech/Engineering speak English nowadays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not the norm, as the employment modalities in that thread are super strange. If you’re employed by a German entity and your salary is 91.1k€, your take-home income would be around 53.8k€. Put another way - the $100k / 91.1k€ are the Arbeitgeberbrutto, they correspond to 75.5k€ Arbeitnehmerbrutto (the number you’d normally see on your contract). The difference exists because there are employer deductions and e…
> If you’re employed by a German entity and your salary is 91.1k€, your take-home income would be around 53.8k€. > Put another way - the $100k / 91.1k€ are the Arbeitgeberbrutto, they correspond to 75.5k€ Arbeitnehmerbrutto I fully disagree. I'm talking about the Arbeitgeberbrutto as it does not make any difference for the employer if he sends the money to you or to the state/health insurance/.... He is already payin…
Your premise just seems fundamentally flawed.
The question I think needs answering is why we wouldn't do it. Obviously most people would love to have an extra 52 days a year to themselves to spend with family, do hobbies, handle personal business. Outside of greed or operational commitments, why aren't we doing this?
This is famously why shitty minimum wage jobs have endlessly changing schedules. Many companies have actual rules against setting regularly scheduled shifts.
Was interesting watching the shift happen, regular schedules used to be the norm and it was far easier to work several jobs. Especially once everything became part-time in the 90's.