[mushufasa]

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 special policies to treat those workers differently, and I would not be excited about the unambitious "antiwork" ethos

[lutrinus]

Interestingly, as a German who lives in a bubble where people take their jobs very seriously, I was equally surprised when I experienced pretty much what you described while visiting the US.

I guess there are “proud to be lazy” kind of people in any country. It’s definitely not a widespread German cultural thing, though, from my experience.

[FirmwareBurner]

I think it's that when you're a tourist visiting somewhere you're far more likely to encounter people without jobs wherever you go, as the people with jobs are at work working, then go home to their families or friends or chores then go to bed, not hang around all day in the city center cafes chatting up tourists.

[9dev]

My educated guess would be that there are some stark cultural differences that lead to a misunderstanding here. First off, there’s a general and fundamental difference in the way Germans and Americans understand work.

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.

[FirmwareBurner]

>I spent the summer in Berlin and, as an American

That's a pretty bad way to get an impression of a whole country. That's like those American tourists visiting only the instagramable parts of Paris and Rome and then say they "saw Europe" lol.

Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority to the point they're annoyed that nobody at cafes, bars and restaurants can take their orders in German.

Try vising smaller cities in Germany where the locals are a majority to get an actual feel of the country's culture and people. Berlin is too far from representative, it's just the place most foreigners feel comfortable because they're surrounded by other foreigners.

[pitkali]

> Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority to the point they're annoyed that nobody at cafes, bars and restaurants can take their orders in German.

This is a pretty tired trope. As an immigrant living in Berlin since 2020, first in Prenzlauer Berg and now in Schöneweide, I still haven't found those enclaves that even speak English, let alone don't speak German. I'm sure they exist, but generalising from them to the whole 4 million+ city seems as misguided as generalising from your Berlin experience to the rest of the country.

[jonp888]

I have eaten in Restaurants and and shopped in shops in Berlin where at least some of the staff were unable to speak even the very basic German needed to take an order or inform the customer of the price. This seemingly wasn't considered a reason not to employ them. As another example, there are plenty, perhaps even the majority of Yoga studios that work in English only.

It's probably going too far to call it an "enclave", but I don't think any of this would happen in any other German city.

[FlyingSnake]

They might be talking about the famous Kreuzkölln bubble around Görli, Kotti and Schlesi.

[whstl]

I find it easier to hear Turkish than English there.

[FlyingSnake]

Why smaller cities? OP would be shocked to see other parts of Berlin like Steglitz, Moabit or Weißensee, where this isn’t a norm.

[JAlexoid]

Berlin is cosmopolitan, not "Expat enclave".

Berlin attracts people from all over Europe and the common language is English.

[bakchodi]

What are some expat neighborhoods in Berlin? I was just trying to find American expat enclaves like Chinatown in NY - couldn't really, outside of Antigua in Guatemala

[whstl]

> Especially that Berlin is basically an American/Expat enclave in Germany where the native Germans are a minority

C'mon, let's not exaggerate, it is 71% of ethnic Germans according to Wikipedia.

[FirmwareBurner]

And if you go for a walk in the city you mostly hear English.

[whstl]

Only in tourist areas, but that's tourists. During Covid it was very different.

[JAlexoid]

I mostly hear German, so I don't know what you're talking about.

[JAlexoid]

Take note, that in some countries the employer is reimbursed for prolonged employee absence due to illness or similar. Germans are also often paid less, which in many cases is a result of employer taking into account PTO and other absences.

On the other hand working as an independent consultant (contractor, B2B model in EU) - you may get paid similar or even more than what you'd make in the US.

[lm28469]

Nobody's forcing you to operate in countries with worker's rights

[2-718-281-828]

I'd say this attitude is while not exclusively found in Berlin but certainly more frequent there. Berlin is kind of a failed state on multiple levels and this fosters and attitude of "why should I work more than I absolutely have to if I don't gain anything from doing more and still will have to struggle with paying my rent?". the ridiculous influx of immigrants primarily interested in welfare isn't helping either. Places like Munich, Frankfurt, Leipzig etc will give a different picture.

[foobian]

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 securities account for your retirement as the state based pension isn't sufficient anymore due to the aging population).

(1) https://www.reddit.com/r/Finanzen/comments/191nypz/comment/k...

[lorenzhs]

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 employee deductions, but the employer deductions don’t show up on the pay slip. Only in this constellation the employee has to pay both. It’s very much the exception, not the norm.

[foobian]

> 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 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/...

[lorenzhs]

As an employee, the Arbeitgeberbrutto is a number you never see. You’re not saying that employing people isn’t worth it, you’re saying that working in Germany isn’t worth it. Then you have to take the employee’s perspective, not the employer’s. Nobody advertises the true cost to the employer in other countries either. How much do all those benefits to US employees cost? Do you include that when you list US salaries, or do those get magically excluded because health insurance isn’t mandatory?

Your premise just seems fundamentally flawed.

[foobian]

> you’re saying that working in Germany isn’t worth it.

Yes, that's my first sentence in my first comment. My comment was not about reasoning if it is worth to employ people in germany but to state why people may prefer to work less.

> How much do all those benefits to US employees cost? Do you include that when you list US salaries, or do those get magically excluded because health insurance isn’t mandatory?

Yes, if the employer pays it it is part of the loan and should be considered if you compare the loans between different countries.

> Your premise just seems fundamentally flawed.

Okay, to be honest I just don't see how it is flawed. Also I don't have anything left to say. I just don't see why I shouldn't consider it as part of the salary as it would not make a difference to the employer to pay it to the employee instead if the employee deductions wouldn't exist.

-------

Edit: I can't answer anymore. So I'm editing this post.

> Making an argument about how people may want to work less based on a number most have never seen [...] is a flawed argument no matter how you approach it.

Yes, that makes sense. Most employees likely won't think about how much of the Arbeitgeberbrutto is taken away. Still I think if you know it then it reduces ones motivation and it also has the indirect effect of reducing the Arbeitnehmerbrutto an employer is willing to pay and therefore employees may be less motivated due to a low salary.

[lorenzhs]

Making an argument about how people may want to work less based on a number most have never seen or care about is a flawed argument no matter how you approach it.

[yoyoinbog]

Berlin is not really Germany.

Working in Germany is mostly more exhausting than many jobs in the US.

[harryf]

One issue is the way taxes work in Germany that disincentives entering the middle rungs of a career ladder. Like if you’re a software engineer and want to become an engineering manager, you might end up earning less after tax as a manager than you did as an engineer as your salary increase puts you in a new tax bracket.

Otherwise Germanys economy is optimized to support medium to large German companies with export businesses. Little attention has been given to support new business ventures, so for young people becoming an entrepreneur makes little sense when you can earn more and have less stress with a normal job.

full disclosure: this is based on personal experience and observation as a Brit that worked in Germany for a while and ended up in Switzerland

[pi-e-sigma]

< you might end up earning less after tax as a manager than you did as an engineer as your salary increase puts you in a new tax bracket

That's not how progressive taxation and the tax brackets work. In reality you pay higher tax rate only on the amount above the threshold. So if, say, the tax rate is 20% on the income up to $10000 and 30% above it then if you earn $30000 you pay 20% on the $10000 and 30% only on the remaining $20000. You don't pay 30% on the whole $30000. Why is this misconception is so common?

[mrks_hy]

> you might end up earning less after tax as a manager than you did as an engineer as your salary increase puts you in a new tax bracket.

This is impossible, even with the very high German taxes :-)

You will keep less of each (EDIT: additional) Euro you earn, but the tax progression is not that broken that getting paid more results in less money for you. There are diminishing returns on hours worked, if that is what you meant, but otherwise it's untrue.

[FlyingSnake]

This is not true.

For example A Software Engineer can earn 90K while an Engineering Manager can earn 85K at a different company.