[devdude1337]

Freelance developer from Germany here. There is a significant drop in projects and a slowdown in permanent offerings, but no layoff wave like in the US. Demand is still high but due to the current recession most companies delay hiring for now.

From my point of view there is also a skill-missmatch in Germany. While firms look for the usual most modern tech stacks, workforce is often conservative, staying years or even decades at one company with outdated technology. Hiring non-EU citizens is almost impossible because of the bureaucracy.

So, in Germany the situation is complicated and different from the US.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Hiring non-EU citizens is almost impossible because of the bureaucracy.

We want to water down the already mediocre wages even more? If you can't find workers across the whole 448 million EU block willing to work for you, you're doing something wrong.

[devdude1337]

What makes you think that developers from Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, Egypt or the US would demand so much lower wages? I helped companies onboarding people from all over the globe, and every developer (at least those we met and signed) know their worth.

[jamil7]

Because if people can compete on wages due to lower COL, they will, and some companies will reward that.

[698969]

Immigrants don't get a lower COL, they live in the same place and pay the same taxes.

If anything their COL is higher because of the fees related to being an immigrant, they lose out on benefits and on sharing fixed costs with the family.

[jamil7]

I’m aware, I’m an immigrant. The thread is discussing outsourcing to lower COL areas not immigration (at least that’s how I interpreted it).

[FirmwareBurner]

>and every developer (at least those we met and signed) know their worth

What about those you didn't sign? What about the SW bodyshops aka visa shops, who pray on desperate foreigners from broken countries trying to emigrate at any cost? I know more of those sleezy bodyshops than I have fingers on my hands to count.

I never said your comapny does this, but you can't pretend immigration wage dumping doesn't exist and that many companyes aren't exploiting it.

You also can't tell me with a straight face that flooding the market with more workers doesn't lower wages as per the supply/demand of the market.

[oytis]

These foreigners will quickly learn the cost of living in Germany and what their colleagues get, I don't think it's a significant factor. What really keeps wages down IMO is the lack of high-margin/high-growth businesses, lack of German "unicorns", general risk-averseness of German capital (which can be explained by the previous two).

[FirmwareBurner]

> IMO is the lack of high-margin/high-growth businesses

It's not really a German-only thing. Other than the US and China almost no other country currently has such things. EU is mostly traditional businesses and risk-averse investors.

[oytis]

> It's not really a German-only thing.

Sure, relatively (compared to what one can have in the US) low salaries for software engineers is a EU wide thing. Some countries pay more some less, Germany is probably closer to the top if you consider EU.

[jamil7]

I'm also a freelance developer living in Germany. I've been lucky enough to be on a fairly large, ongoing project for the last year, so I haven't been affected. But new project inquiries/leads have basically dropped to zero for me.

From work, to housing, it feels like the population is in "wait and see" mode.

[askonomm]

Most of the remote jobs I see from Germany also hire only those who live in Germany, so it seems to me that Germans don't even want EU citizens, just Germans.

[FirmwareBurner]

That's in every EU country for tax and social security reasons, they want you to also be a tax resident there because that dicatates your tax, labor laws and employee benefits meaning it's familiar and predictable for the company.

There's no EU wide citizenship, employee regulations and tax liability for employees but are local for each country. They don't want you earning money in one country but spemding it and taxing it in another.

This is where the EU is weaker than the US and will keep missing the mark in software.

[askonomm]

You pay income tax based on where you live though. So I can earn money from Germany, but if I live in Estonia, my taxes go to Estonia. Most remote workers I know are set up as LLC's, and they simply invoice their clients for the work, entirely avoiding any tax or social security issues for the employer, since you the employee have to deal with it yourself in your own country.

[gituliar]

At first you pay taxes in the country the company you work for is registered (there might be b2b options, which might differ). Then you pay rest in the country where you have a tax residency.

In your example, at first you pay taxes in Germany and if Estonian taxes are bigger, you pay the difference there.

[Archelaos]

I am partly working for an Italian company from Germany. Billing is very simple. I invoice the Italian company according to the so-called reverse charge procedure: My invoice does not include VAT, but only the European VAT number of my and the customer's company. The customer must settle the VAT with his tax office. I only have to inform my tax office at regular intervals about the turnover with the individual companies, so that the European tax authorities can check whether the customer has declared his taxes correctly.

I invoice via my own company. But this is not mandatory. You can also apply for a VAT number as an individual and follow the same procedure. I did this before I set up the company.

[gituliar]

This is because you run your own company. Things are different if one works for a company as an employee.

[FirmwareBurner]

Yeah, you can but as LLCs, not as direct employees.

[oytis]

At least in Germany there are strict rules for what is called a pretence of self-employment. A freelancer needs to have more than one client, the client cannot set working hours, access to systems also cannot be the same as for employees etc. US has something similar AFAIK, I would expect most EU countries to have it too.

[FirmwareBurner]

Yeah but that doesn't aid cross-EU remote work, quite the contrary.

[askonomm]

Well yes, EU/Europe is a collection of many independent countries, unlike U.S which is one country. And you can't work in a country as an employee without having a residence permit in that country. The comparison to U.S here makes absolutely no sense.

[FirmwareBurner]

>The comparison to U.S here makes absolutely no sense.

Why not? My ex German boss moved to the US to work for a company there and since the position is remote, he can live and work in any state he wants. You can't do that in the EU which limits labor mobility which hurts the EU economy and innovation versus the US.

[vimy]

There are rules to deal with this. Lots of French people near the border work in Belgium for example. They are even actively recruited.

[FirmwareBurner]

Yeah, but those rules are in place mostly to accomodate cross border commuters. I can't easily be employed by a Belgian comapny while living and working in Portugal same as those living in Belgium, but involves extra hoops like either me working as a LLC or the company setting up an office in Portugal or hiring me through a local Porthughese third party, adn most caompnies don't want this hassle just for one employee.

I'm not in Portugal, that was just for the sake of an example.

[gituliar]

In EU since Jul'23 cross-border remote work is free of extra taxes and similar obligation if done up to 50% abroad. One can come to Germany for 3 days and come back to his country to work for 2 days remotely and spend weekend.

More here https://socialsecurity.belgium.be/en/internationally-active/...

[mathverse]

Unfortunately this is effectively useless as you need to submit your employees one by one to get this exception. I know of an employer ($4bn revenue) who said this is simply not feasible.

EU bureaucrats are just stupid.

[devdude1337]

Many managers I got to know have a hard time expressing themselves in English properly.

They fear miscommunication and the administrative work connected to non-German employees.

[GrumpySloth]

Most of German job offers I’ve seen require proficiency in the German language. That’s unlike offers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or Israel, where you’re only required to speak English. Nothing else is ever even suggested in those offers. My sister works in Germany and says that while Germans are pretty easy to talk to in English on the street, in a shop etc., they’re reluctant to do so in a work context and she gets irritated looks when she only speaks at B1 level. Germany is pretty uniquely hostile to foreigners in that regard. I suspect that the requirement you’re speaking of is set up mainly to filter out those who don’t speak German very well.

[drinchev]

Note that we also had COVID and shifted to remote gigs in Germany. This means that we compete with people located in smaller cities or even villages which probably have a pretty good pay rate bump.

[oytis]

What is the bureaucracy in question? Required salary for the blue card is really low now, especially for tech workers, so basically you just go ahead and hire as I understand.

[nicbou]

I run a website about this for a living.

1. It takes forever to get a residence permit and get permission to start working.

2. It's increasingly difficult to find housing, which is required for the residence permit.

3. The bureaucracy is notoriously slow and outdated, and full of catch-22 situations. It's especially apparent when you need everything at once.

4. The language barrier makes everything harder.

In other words, if you meet all the requirements, you're looking at a multi-month slog before you're finally allowed to start working. People sometimes lose their job before they start due to the immigration office delays.

[devdude1337]

You can of course hire a contractor and tax them as usual business costs. But for a permanent position the employee needs a European Social ID, a Tax ID, health care account and a bank account. All this is needed before you can pay the employee’s first loan.