[DyslexicAtheist]

> I mean you can definitely earn more than 60k in Germany.

exactly. I made that as a Junior in my first full-time job in Munich in 2000 already. Then moved on to freelancing and for the next decade never invoiced less than EUR 12K/month (average was actually EUR ~16K). I did a lot of hours and paid a lot of tax but it also got me fast cars, holidays in Italy, Austria or Switzerland (just for the weekends) and a nanny to help look after my kids. And I wasn't even an outlier since anyone who I worked with (often via places like Hays or Allgeier Group etc) was on pretty much the same.

What I've noticed in the recent years (I moved around 2009) is there has been a push to "Arbeitnehmerüberlassung", which is basically a racket where the outsourcing agency hires you out to their clients, they skim the margins and leave the employees with a crap salary. They sit in their clients office and are second class employees. When the project ends they're moved on to the next company if they're lucky or are asked to come in to the office (not on the client site but the place where they organize this type of slavery), then they get to call prospective clients and beg for jobs that they themselves have to do. It's surreal and idiotic but it's peoples fault for putting up with it instead of just freelancing and writing their own invoices.

[catdog]

Freelancers in Germany also have a problem which is called "Scheinselbstständigkeit". If you do too much work for only one client (there are no clear rules to follow) the public social security system might decide you are to be treated like an employee and your client suddenly has to pay pension insurance and health ensurance for the time you worked for them. Companies fear that because it's a huge chunk of money and to my knowledge this also contributed a lot to "Arbeitnehmerüberlassung" spreading so much into highly skilled positions.

[rurban]

Only if your company has a base in Germany. In my case I worked remote for a US-only company as Scheinselbstständiger, got the full US rates (ie 3x higher than german rates), and paid normal insurance. They had to pay nothing into the German SS system.

[cosmodisk]

The same is the UK with so called IR35, no clear rules, grey areas all over the place, absolute shit show for freelancers and contractors.

[arximboldi]

May I ask what's your specialty and daily rate?