I am glad to hear that workers rights are being enforced in Europe.
As an employee in Germany, it sounds deranged to receive an email saying I have one day to completely change my work contract, or be fired from my job.
The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right, doesn't cost much here, initial consultations are often even free. Don't sign something put in front of you before you had a chance to understand your position. The person who wants you to sign it had ample time to do that, you didn't. Same goes for accepting things that seem unfair via email or verbally, that can weaken your position already.
I've been on both sides of the fence (mostly in Germany). As an employer, my approach was usually to be nice to employees I wanted to get rid of and to offer them a good severance package proactively. If you push an employee and give them ammunition to sue (and you fail to fool/bully them) it's gonna get a lot more expensive. Not to mention distracting/emotional. Just keep in mind that if you hire an FTE, you'll have to mentally put money aside to exit them at some point in the future. Hiring freelancers is more expensive, but doesn't carry these problems. I tend to mix FTEs and freelancers, partly to distribute the risks and costs.
When talking to people in bad situations with their employer, I'm always surprised how little they know and how easily they're willing to take the short end of the stick. There's a deal between you and the company that specifies what you'll do for them and what you'll get in return, with legal context surrounding it. I think it's also good to be nice and willing to compromise in that situation, but employees generally don't seem to be aware of what a powerful position they're actually in, and don't feel they "deserve" that, or don't want to upset anyone. It's business at the end of the day, contracts. Don't be a bad business person, it's not like CEOs will respect or like you more if you don't put up a fight. Typically the opposite.
The lack of these protections is one thing that, IMHO, warrants the comparatively high US salaries in tech. More risk, more reward - business 101 stuff.
Not sure about germany or other countries but in France any contractual change that specifically make the employee position worse without any clear return is essentially voided in "prud'hommes" (the workers/companies justice court) unless they were warned in advance of a negociation meet and brought their representative with them (any company above 10 must have one, and more and more as the company grow).
Also, any major change need to be in counter signed writing, it cannot be a one way thing, not even a "we both agreed" even if it's true.
As an employer myself it sometimes lead to seemingly absurd situation where you need heavy procedures for a simple change, but the end result is that no worker is screwed this way in a way that would stick in court (it still does happen, mostly in areas where people don't go to court after, of course).
A specific kind of deal is the "the company is going south, we make a collective agreement like eg no firing and no dividends and workers agreed to reduced hours or salary for X months" things like this, and in Twitter case it could be what they should have used, but again these have clear procedures and steps to be considered legal and not abuse by the employer, and as you can imagine a middle of the night email with no representation does not fit at all.
I know Musk is a know it all that believe he is so smart and better that he doesn't need to listen to the competent persons around, but I wished I could be a fly on the wall in the company's lawyer room that day, just for the absurdity of it (I imagine it was sort of "we can pretend it's ok, or we can tell him and be fired too").
Oh we don't appear to have that level of protections in Germany. If you accept, for example, a demotion (that one could argue is still in line with the job title and description in your contract) via email, it's difficult to contest later. If you do want to contest it, you have to be quick and do it in writing. For something like reducing salary or other benefits, or changing your job title, those need to be counter signed. Problem is, quite often promotions are (deliberately) not offered with contract amendments, so when you're demoted later, the company can argue you've never legally been promoted in the first place. Sounds like a drag, but it's incredibly useful to describe your role and responsibilities in the employment contract, and to insist on an update once promoted.
As for Musk's lawyers, I'd also love to know how exactly that played out, I can imagine all kinds of scenarios, some hilarious. The most likely to me seems that he wasn't exactly involved in this particular case, or any of these cases. People handle it based on what they think he'd want to do, then pass on the bad news if their plots fail somehow. I'm assuming this might be net positive for him in the end: He got away with the forced, incredibly quick culture change and workforce culling and was able to move forward with his strategy immediately. Delaying problems seems to have worked out for him quite a bit in the past.
> The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right,
If you've been forced to make a choice with an incredibly short timescale, many tribunals/courts (in Europe anyway) will put aside your choice if it later turns out to be detrimental. It's a bit like forcing someone to sign a contract at gunpoint.
> “I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right, doesn't cost much here, initial consultations are often even free”
In many European countries unions provide free legal support.
Join the union even if things are good for you now, and you don’t have to go hunting for legal help if one day you feel like your employer isn’t being fair.
In France it's mandatory in a company to have a "company union", after 10 employee it's one representative (employee who has part of his paid time dedicated to employees support functions, and it grows to more and more the more employees there is.
Whether those representative act on their own, or join a national union or syndicate, is their own decision, and they're elected every 4 years.
Any meeting or importance between an employee and his employer, he can request one of the representative be present to assist him (and in some type of meeting, it is pretty much mandatory to avoid employer pressuring against).
Etc etc ...
Our system is far from perfect, but at least having SOMEONE in the company to turn to seem to make sense to me.
> In France it's mandatory in a company to have a "company union", after 10 employee it's one representative (employee who has part of his paid time dedicated to employees support functions, and it grows to more and more the more employees there is.
In Germany, that's called "Betriebsrat" (something like "company council") with pretty much the same purpose.
And then there's the "Gewerkschaft", which are unions not for one company but for entire sectors of the economy who - through their numbers of members - are able to do collective bargaining for the employees of their fields of various companies. E.g. "IG Metall" being the industrial union of metalworkers, which considering Germanys large manufacturing background is the largest union in the country.
I think that the standard translation into UK English of “Betriebsrat” is “Works Council” [1].
I’ve never been highly convinced by these organs, since they seem to be colonised by folks who want to become Very Difficult to Fire, and who ultimately fold to any poorly thought-through management decision that impacts the lives of employees.
I’ve come to that both as an individual contributor and as a senior manager, but YMMV.
Can't wait until the US wakes up and we get an endless 'that's why the startup/innovation culture in the EU sucks and will never be comparable to the US'
Is it wrong for people to voice views that you disagree with? The value of HN is hearing differing view points.
It would be nice if people on HN tried to engage in a good willed nature rather than treating discussions like a struggle session.
But to the topic at hand, in rapidly changing sectors, high levels of friction when it comes to employment has a cost. There is no free lunch in economics.
When hiring employees means you’re hiring them effectively for life, it creates disincentives for hiring. Maybe you hiring consultants instead. Or maybe you make do and not hire at all.
No doubt it benefits employees when it comes to job stability. But the cost can be not having those jobs at all. That’s something that has to be considered in the equation.
The other thing is the employee obligations it creates. When I worked in Europe I had to give three months notice to quit. Either that or pay the company the equivalent of the salary I made. As an employee it was a penalty I couldn’t afford and thus opportunities at start ups that needed someone now were out of reach. Employee protections had a real cost to me.
It’s pretty clear that Europe as a whole is willing to pay that cost, but it’s a choice.
Nothing wrong with that, but one can’t make that choice then turn around and wonder why your innovative sectors are lagging other countries.
The problem on such discussion that many Americans (I am not sure if you are but experience says yes you're) tend to use only straw man arguments (and that's why the reason they are ignored)
"When hiring employees means you’re hiring them effectively for life, it creates disincentives for hiring. "
In Germany it is not the case.
"The other thing is the employee obligations it creates. When I worked in Europ"
Europe is a big place and working law in the EU (and outside too!) is in the charge of national law. Where have you been living ?
In Germany you can talk to company to quit earlier because these quitting comworkers tend to be rather unproductive.
The 6th largest Software-Provider in the World (SAP) is probably the most notable global german software firm. Deutsche Telekom, maybe.
As far as I am aware, there are some bigger gaming companies as well.
But this is, of course, a singular counterexample.
Germany has a large "Mittelstand", so medium sized companies and much stronger antitrust/cartell-laws. One could argue, that the lack of extremly large tech-companies is, for better or worse, by design.
Wirecard was a disaster for a multitude of reasons: The company itself [lost|stole|defrauded] a billion euros, their auditors (Ernst&Young, now "EY") failed to notice a billion euros of irregularities and lost their auditing license over the debacle. The german banking authorities failed in some capacity I cannot remember right now.
I don't know why you are interested in a niche BaaS/Investment bank. The customer facing "fintech" is N26 and they used Wirecard as a BaaS(banking as a service) provider before they had their own banking license. If you are interested in another BaaS then checkout SolarisBank instead.
We also have our own fancy pants multi billion dollar delivery companies like "Delivery Hero/Lieferheld" or Zalando that Silicon Valley types are so fond of.
SoundCloud is a German startup. So is ResearchGate.
Or how about Hello fresh that so many English speaking YouTubers tend to have sponsorships with?
By the way I was mostly trying to think of Silicon Valley esque startups with a strong internet presence. The moment you talk about things like semiconductors, digital twins, robotics, basically any manufacturing related technology, Germany has a long list of major "tech" companies. I know, I know "tech" is actually American slang for software, not hardware, technology but still.
That is unbelievable to me. You always have the right to quit, and penalties are rare. The laws depend on the country you're in of course, but I've never heard of three months, and I've lived in Europe my whole life.
Would you mind sharing the country you were working in?
In Norway, 3 months notice is the norm, and you can be expected to work it. In practice, there's rarely much value in holding people to it (though it can happen) because someone who really doesn't want to be there isn't going to be a productive employee. But lots of people do stay the 3 months because people looking to hire are also used to often having to wait 3 months to get someone on full time.
It's pretty common to have penalties if you quit without notice.
It's also a breach of contract. Employers probably won't go after you in court though, unless your immediate departure cause them some damage larger than the lawyer's bill.
One month is common for juniors or contractors. I've never seen a contract with less than 1 month notice in tech.
Three months is common for senior or management positions.
I am Italian and at my previous work at a bank, I had a two month notice (originally one, but increased with seniority). As far as I know, it is pretty common in Italy, and employers know that when they hire someone, the person will only join one to three months later due to this - or sometimes they offer to pay the penalty
In Germany the minimum time of notice for being fired scales up with your seniority (number of years employed in the company). However, many work contracts add a stipulation that the minimum time of notice from the law be applied to both parties equally, so quitting will also need an advance notice of the same length.
My previous contract (Ireland) was 3 months - it was reciprocal, so they had to give me 3 months notice to quit, and I had to give them 3 months notice to quit.
Due to the position "garden leave" was the most typical way to spend those 3 months, so it wasn't much of a real-world concern.
Treating workers terribly isn't considered good startup/innovation culture by the US. It is standard practice by large non-innovative corporations though which is what Twitter is. Twitter surpassed stats that would qualify it as a startup over a decade ago long before Musk entered the picture.
I mean, it does allow a better access to "move fast, innovate and break things", the issue being that some of things broken are people lives and careers and in the EU we more or less decided this was not ok nor worth it.
Well, stifling regulation is one problem, but the real reason the EU is behind is the lack of a single place with low taxes on investors and talent.
The effect is compounded by all the smart talent going to SV or large rich cities (London, Zurich), leaving scraps to the rest.
Unrealized capital tax gains being reinvested tax free made Silicon Valley's exponential growth possible (which is the only reason why a16z was forced to back Trump despite the Tech are being overwhelmingly democrat leaning - they're scared they'll be taxed out of existance).
The issue in Europe is that in many countries the law goes to the opposite extreme. The level of 'protection' and rigidity is so high that it actually utimately hurts people because there are fewer opportunities and lower growth as a result.
BTW in Germany, if a company decides to lay off people just to save money, they have to coordinate with some government agency -- and if the company doesn't have financial trouble, those layoffs can be blocked.
This happened to Alphabet/Google when they wanted to lay off 6% of their workforce, but were wildly profitable. They couldn't in Germany.
(This probably wouldn't have applied in the Twitter case, because Twitter wasn't profitable, but it illustrates that there are processes and rules around employment that might seem very unusual to others).
I know the subtext of this comment is "European labor laws are good."
But it seems you've cited an example of something ironically very anti-labor. This means your government has codified into law the false idea that all human employees are undifferentiated commodities (like cattle). So as an employer, if there's no ability to remove underperformers every year, you've turned employment into a market for lemons, and created a classic adverse selection problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
A market for lemons 1) suppresses prices [wages in this context] 2) decreases price variance and 3) creates inefficiencies. As 50% of workers are actually above average (statistics!), you've created a negative feedback loop hurting workers wages and ultimately growth in the economy.
> But it seems you've cited an example of something ironically very anti-labor. This means your government has codified into law the false idea that all human employees are undifferentiated commodities (like cattle). So as an employer, if there's no ability to remove underperformers every year
No, that is not the case. You can still fire people and you can do so especially if they are underperforming. You just can't do it as a mass layoff.
If you fire someone then you need a reason to do so. If you fire people because of a layoff then you need to show that the layoff is legitimate.
You can not just group underperformers and let them go as a layoff because you are circumventing labor law. You can not lie about the reason why you are letting someone go.
No one would care if you fired 99% of your company IF you are prepared to show they were underperforming and that was the official reason given.
I was easy enough to fire for my former employers.
You would probably say that it isn't EASY because in the US it is much easier to do. You might not be able to do it immediately without notice period unless the employee does something really stupid or illegal.
You can however fire someone any time when you give them the notice period defined in the employment contract. You might need to give them a warning that they are underperforming first so that they can fix it before you fire them, but after that, you can just fire them.
This happens ALL THE TIME, but it isn't done as a mass/group action. If you have a problem with an individual then the individual gets fired.
Also, in the first 6 months, you don't need any reason and the notice period is shortened to 2 weeks.
>This means your government has codified into law the false idea that all human employees are undifferentiated commodities (like cattle). So as an employer
If layoffs only affected "underperformers" you may have a point. laying off 6% of your workforce despite a profitable year betrays the basic idea of "underperforming".
All that aside, if your worst employee is still generating a profit for the company then there's little ground to say they are "underperforming".
German here. I would be very interested in the government agency you are alluding to.
There are laws regulating layoffs due to operating conditions (Kuendigungsschutzgesetz). But these laws do not allow the government to intervene directly in company affairs - that would be communism! If a company wants to restructure "for internal reasons" (rationalizations are specifically mentioned) it is allowed to do so. This includes offshoring, moving workload to contractors, or simply getting rid of a department.
However: many of the large companies (eg. SAP, BASF, carmakers,...) have collective labor agreements. These agreements often exclude layoffs due to operational conditions within a certain period. Under very special circumstances layoffs are still possible in such arrangements, but the companies have to prove their economic hardship and the layoffs often end with a sort of golden handshake. If they happen at all :)
I've read up a bit on it, and it seems I was wrong. I was under the impression that some kind of regulatory body that told Google that they don't have a good enough reason to lay off people, but it might have been their own council.
To lay off somebody, a company needs a reason, and the bar for being laid off because of redundancy is pretty high. You have to be able to proof that either the economic situation is bad enough that other measures don't help, or that their labor had been automated away, or other possible reasons that don't apply here (like seasons for seasonal workers).
It's the main reason I chose to move to Europe instead of the US, despite potentially making more money in the US. I very much appreciate the labor protections in most EU countries.
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary.
Companies could even offer that as an option. We pay you $97k with no labour protections, or $68k but we promise to give you all the labour rights that Germany has, including nice long holidays, unions, no unpaid overtime, can't be fired without cause, etc. Your choice.
(And those figures are the median programmer salary in the USA and Germany respectively)
Employment figures for Ireland or Germany aren't far from their US counterpart.
And on the other hand, the French government dramatically loosened the rules around layoffs in 2016 (you can let people go as soon as you have a decline in sales over a few month, a negative cash flow over the same period, if their are new competitors on your market, or even just if there's technological change in your sector that justifies getting rid of people). It was 8 years ago and it has had little to no impact on France's unemployment, which is still very high.
I'd rather go through a bigger hoop one time every 10 years or more than the current circus of being let go every 2-3 years and needing to re-interview. The latter just means I spend part of my free time worrying about the next job hop by studying trivia, instead of doing something I actually like to do.
> I could still buy a car, a house, raise a family, have some savings, etc.
You are an outlier. Very few SDEs in EU can afford to raise a family in their own SFH on a single salary while living in a location with any notable IT jobs market.
In Poland, it's not hard. I suspect some other EE countries are similar. Western Europe is harder, with high marginal tax rates and super-expensive real estate.
This actually used not be the case. About six years ago I was in San Francisco for work, and was surprised how inexpensive it was. Like, it wasn’t cheap, but I’d heard it talked up as basically the most expensive place in the world, and it was largely cheaper than Dublin.
Going back recently, it’s a _lot_ more expensive; home has gotten more expensive too, but not at the same rate.
(Some of this is due to the currency thing, of course; the dollar was about as weak as it ever got post-financial crisis in 2018.)
Your mistake there is comparing to Dublin - I live in an expensive Uk city (Edinburgh) and it’s just incredible how expensive going home to Dublin is.
The other bit is that you’re comparing living in Dublin to visiting SF. Rental prices in SF make Dublin seem cheap. You’re still probably financially better off living in SF as an engineer, but I’d rather the quality of life of Ireland/Europe
> I heard that wges are less than 50% but you end up saving more
Curios regarding how you came up with that conclusion. After paying rent, taxes and buying some groceries from EU senior engineer's ~80k you will generally have enough to maybe buy a new smartphone at the end of the year, not any meaningful amount of savings.
Honestly, true. But possibly not in the way people imagine
People see the difference in wages, but what they miss is a) the amount of fees and extra expenses they have to pay that escape cost of living calculations, b) the "natural" lifestyle inflation that comes with living in the US (maybe summed up by the word consumerism), c) some size/low density related inefficiencies and d) things like educational costs
Now, yes Europe makes it hard on itself a lot by being dumb (see HS2 costs soaring off or the failed German energy policy - not against renewable but their fee structure is stupid)
> Europe is CHEAP compared to America, it's fascinating.
Yup. Cost of living is insanely low compared to the US, even when just comparing hotbeds like Silicon Valley vs London/Berlin/Munich, with the largest factor being housing. Additionally, healthcare costs are far lower as well - there is no such thing as co-pays, surprise bills and whatnot here (although I do admit some things like dental and vision care aren't covered by insurance, but generally still affordable).
Interesting, but as someone who visits the USA sometimes for short work/tourist trips, food and drinks are much cheaper pretty much anywhere except maybe California. And because that's most of what you spend on during short trips, not counting hotels (which are about the same price as Europe) to me the USA is a paradise of cheap drinks and large meals :D (but yeah, Europe wins on quality).
> You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary.
FWIW, this is not as simple as labour protections being effectively equivalent to $29k. By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate. It's strictly better than having a choice between $97k and $68k + labor protections.
Also you are not taxed on that notional 29k, of course (this is one reason that companies often offer in excess of the statutory minimum paid leave etc; it’s essentially an un-taxable benefit). Given the choice between an extra week paid leave at your 100k a year job (notional value is ~2k) or a 2k raise, you’re probably better off taking the leave.
> By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate.
In competitive markets prices approach the cost of production rather than absorbing all of the disposable income of the customer. If you have uncompetitive markets, that is a separate problem with its own solutions.
And then you have the other problem. The job pays $29k less because it costs the company that much to avoid those costs, i.e. they're willing to pay that much more to someone in the US to do the same job. That doesn't mean you're getting $29k in value. Some of the money is going to compliance and administration rather than you.
And in general money is worth more than stuff, because if you want the stuff you can buy it with money, but if you don't want that specific stuff then turning it back into money or other stuff at best incurs transaction costs and at worst isn't even achievable.
The notion that you're not taxed on the stuff is also an illusion; the rules apply to everyone in the jurisdiction and the government needs however much money from people to provide the services it provides so if you're not paying it there you're either paying it somewhere else or getting fewer government services.
> In competitive markets prices approach the cost of production rather than absorbing all of the disposable income of the customer. If you have uncompetitive markets, that is a separate problem with its own solutions.
All markets are a bit uncompetitive — if they were not, if they were perfectly elastic and frictionless cows in a vacuum, then not only would anyone making a profit be undercut by someone willing to make less profit, a cycle which would repeat until profits became zero, but so too would wages be undercut by anyone else willing to provide the labour for less, with the same cycle driving income to subsistence + internet in our present case (or pennies per kloc when LLMs get better).
Oh sure, but there's a vast difference between "people make $1000 more and landlords take $0.05 on the dollar" and "people make $1000 more and landlords take $0.95 on the dollar".
Profit margins are also not inherently determined by wages in some other sector. If a bag clip costs $1 and $0.25 of that is profit and $0.75 is cost of labor, the profit margin clearly isn't zero. If nurses then get a pay raise that came out of reduced overhead rather than higher prices, the unrelated $1 item can profitably be produced for the same price it always was.
In can, indeed, go the other way. Some item is $1.00, $0.75 of that is labor, you eliminate some regulatory overhead which reduces the company's labor costs (e.g. need fewer HR/lawyers) and now the labor costs fall to $0.60. But this also reduces barriers to entry to the market, so competition increases, the profit component drops to $0.20 and now the item costs $0.80 instead of $1.00.
Of course you'd want to put those terms in the employment contract, not just a verbal promise. Surely you wouldn't get exactly the same protection as in another country with a completely different legal system, but at least you could get part of it.
And yeah, they could terminate the contract, but they would still be bound by its terms that say how they can do that, with how much notice, for what reasons, and how much they will owe you.
Contract law is strong. If a company deliberately gave the employee lots of rights in an employment contract (in return for less pay), a court would hold the company to that later whilst it was solvent, even if company management later changes it's approach.
No, you are not buying that in your salary. The cost of living is shared more evenly in most European countries. You may consider it an insurance, and most insurance policies don't work if there is only one buyer.
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary.
There may be some truth to this, but it's not as stark as some think.
The average cost of a "moderate" house in.. say, Palo Alto is around $3M USD. Those are typically older houses, smaller lots, less desirable neighbourhoods.
Everything is more expensive in such an area. Property tax on that $3M USD house is likely going to be about $20k USD per year, one may as well say an additional $2000/month. That property tax alone is more than most people pay for mortgages in any other place in the US.
I once compared my Ottawa, ON, Canada salary to at typical, comparable one in SV. After looking at the cost of housing, and living, I determined that even though I was making 1/3 the salary? I was taking home more.
Now of course, there is one key difference here. If you don't rent, and do buy, some of that missing "take home" goes into property which does have value. But if you're a renter? If your primary cost (housing) isn't coming back to you in some way?
That SV salary is actually a lot less than you think.
I'd take $100kUSD in Ottawa, over $200kUSD, maybe even $300kUSD in SV, if I wasn't able to buy. EG, forced to rent. And I'd have more money in my pocket in Ottawa, at end of day.
Oh, and that massive property tax certainly isn't recoverable. You're paying some of that whether you rent (because the landlord does), or if you buy.
I reached a similar conclusion back when I was planning what to do if the Brexit referendum went the wrong way (it did).
Even ignoring the labour rights issues (because I didn't really consider them at the time), rent and other costs were high enough that I was seriously considering a private pilot's license and a small aircraft for commuting, because that would allow a nice easy fast commute from somewhere that wasn't priced absurdly. That wouldn't actually have worked either, but I decided against the USA well before pursuing that to more than a superficial calculation — if I had, then it wouldn't have taken until Scott Manley's videos showing me the flight considerations[0] in the area, to learn why this wasn't going to happen.
[0] "I know, I'll commute by light aircraft to somewhere in the middle of a city that has a huge international airport and is 'one of the busiest airspace in the world'", yeah, no https://johmathe.github.io/flying_bay_tour.html
A big section of this is the petrodollar creating an perversly stong USD.
As that dies off and the USD rebalances to a post American empire equilibrium, housing priced in USD will be far more similar everywhere, exactly the same way it did post British and French empires. (back when 1gbp would buy you 10usd)
I don't get the reasoning here. Costs in SV are a direct result of the economic powerhouse it is, and the size of the local population. A lot of people cite all sorts of other reasons, but those reasons exist in every other US state to a degree, and yet many of those states do not have high property costs.
It's all about population density compared with economic might.
If the USD was to crash tomorrow, people in SV would still draw their salaries, housing would still be the same price relative to them. You're not going to erase costs due to population density and economic drive, because a dollar drops a bit.
Not to mention, the UK has a GDP basically half the US per capita. That has nothing to do with a petro dollar or not. I really see the "petro dollar" thing is a talking point, without the validity to back it up.
generally speaking USD is going to lose about 50% of its value as the petrodollar and yen carry trade unwind over the next couple of decades.
So to understand what is actually being earnt and spent in the US in a global context, just divide USD prices by 2, then you can see e.g. the US and UK gdp per capita are basically the same.
Its obviously far more complex than this, but that basic rule of thumb still holds even when you add in all the complexity.
The US is not Silicon Valley. You have a much better take home salary if you want to buy a house elsewhere in the US.
You can also choose to live in California for a few years as a renter if you are young, save money and go live elsewhere with the savings. Ask me how I know you can do that...
Yeh this person's argument makes no sense in the context of today's Ontario, but did about 5+ years ago. Housing price inflation here has made the lower SWE salaries here very uncompetitive.
And it's not just the house itself, goods and services associated with real estate have blown up with it. Home renovations and maintenance work on your home (if you can even find a contractor) are just stupid. So even if you bought in years ago (like I did), the carrying costs are very high.
You need to compare like for like. If you're talking about homes in Kanata, then you need to look at homes the same distance in the East Bay where you can buy for under $1M as well.
A $3M home in Palo Alto is comparable to a Ottawa home in the core of the city. And not a townhome, a detached single family home.
The higher wages in the US are not related to labour protections. They are related to vastly higher wages in tech because of big corps pushing up those wages to have the best of the best working for them.
Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections.
Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors)
> Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections.
That doesn't follow. The low paying jobs exist because the value to the employer of hiring someone exceeds the low pay. For those jobs, if the employer is required to provide paid vacation etc. then it can push the cost of hiring someone over the cost of offshoring the job or automating it, so the alternative then isn't high pay vs. low pay, it's have a job vs. no job.
Also, many of the costs are in proportion to the pay, e.g. the cost of a vacation day is the cost of paying someone else to cover, so the difference will often be a percentage rather than a fixed amount. Then it's no surprise that skilled professionals get paid more than unskilled labor, but that doesn't mean the unskilled laborers can't still be making more than they would be in the alternative where the company had higher costs to hire them.
> Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors)
They have fewer employee benefits, but in return contractors generally get higher hourly wages. One way or another they have to convince the worker to work for them instead of somebody else.
You're totally missing the point. Tesla set their factory and the poorest area in Texas. They wanted worker protections because they were scared to be exploited by a big corporation.
> ‘I’m going to die in this factory’: Tesla Texas gigafactory construction workers are suing over wage theft and dangerous conditions
But sure...
> They have fewer employee benefits, but in return contractors generally get higher hourly wages. One way or another they have to convince the worker to work for them instead of somebody else.
"generally"
> Other whistleblowers will complain that they were either not paid at all for their work, or were not given proper overtime compensation. Some who sacrificed their time to work over Thanksgiving say that they were never paid the promised double wage, according to the case referral.
Next time. Please come with sources. Because I couldn't find any credible sources for your claims...
Whether software engineers making $750k/year is a bubble has nothing to do with my argument at all. The average annual wages in the US are ~$77,000, compared to ~$55,000 for France or the UK.
The problem is that this additional salary in turns inflates the housing market or tuition fees, and at the end of the day you're not earning that much in exchange for the protection you gave up.
And in countries such as Germany you are legally required to be an employee if you only work for one company. The government will sue the company or if not reachable, they will sue the employee.
Belgian healthcare started like that. First, workers personally kept apart a part of their wages. Then people in 1 factory pooled their money together. Then clusters of factories united into 'verbonden', a union-like construct . These where, like a lot of things at the time, grouped by world view:. Christian, socialist, ...
After a while, the governement wanted in, joined the verbonden to landsbonden (Country level insurers grouped by world view) and put themselves in the money stream.
The end result is Belgium having a weird construction half way between private health insurance and country-level health insurance.
Co-op is the word you’re looking for. These co-ops went far beyond just healthcare after all. They owned bakeries, pharmacies, entertainment facilities for the workers, …
There isn't really a good translation, the concept doesn't really exist in other countries. They have aspects of unions, co-ops, governemental and political organisations. In the past, they had their own legal status. Today, the EU forced them to become real corporations, and e.g. had them split of the travel aspects from the health insurance aspects.
Remember folks: a company's interests are directly opposite to yours. If it makes enough money to not hold their promise, they will.
I don't want promises from an actor that is structurally infinitely more powerful than I ever will be. This is why not only must this be on contract and enforceable at any time, but individualistic mindset is always against our interests, because it's easy to promise to one who will be able to defend themselves and plunder another one who can't.
I am in Australia. We are somewhere in between, not as strong as Germany or Western EU countries but infinitely better than US. When some of us were laid off by a US tech firm in 2023 they had to give us prior notice for consultation and not cut off our access immediately like they did in US. This allowed us a week to understand our rights and find out the mistakes in their offer. They had to go back and come back with a new better offer as per Australian laws.
The number of US tech businesses that are surprised they need, or think they can ignore the need, to obey employment and data protection laws when working in other jurisdictions is simply bonkers.
In the US, you usually don't have a work contract. In many states the employer can fire you for any reason except for being a member of a protected class. Or change the terms of working there.
In such states, employees can also leave for any reason, but the asymmetry of the power dynamic means the "at will" laws are generally more beneficial to the employer.
Ireland has an organisation called the Workplace Relations Commission, anyone can log a complaint against their current or former employer without getting the lawyers involved. The case gets reviewed and if warranted a payment can be required. I believe this case was their highest ever award.
It's nice to have these labour laws, but they only help if you find yourself in the right situation, like this guy, a somewhat senior employee who stands to get a nice payout, and can therefore afford to engage in a legal battle.
But the most vulnerable of us are new grads or people with little experience, and most of the time the abuse from the bosses falls in a gray zone, where it is not clearly illegal, but still very damaging for the future of our careers. And no laws or unions will protect you from that kind of environment.
It's also worth mentioning, with respect to Germany specifically, that there are a lot of anti-worker customs that would make Americans gasp. For example, the quasi-requirement of having pictures and other personal information on your CV, the fact that racial discrimination is an open secret even though there are laws against it, the requirement of a reference letter from your previous employer, the glass ceiling that you will encounter frequently unless you are part of the right demographic to break into management ... I could go on.
As an employee in Germany, I feel abused and helpless. Most of the laws on the books are not written to protect me.
The only thing that really protects people like me is a competitive job market.
> For example, the quasi-requirement of having pictures and other personal information on your CV
Picture was a requirement, but that is slowly becoming less popular. Especially in Tech. Leave it off if you don't feel like including a Picture. I stopped including a Picture as well some years ago and it has not harmed (or improved) me yet.
Which other personal information is required? I would expect contact information and Name. Of course also your Work History and Education. Which personal information do you have a problem with?
> the requirement of a reference letter from your previous employer,
Yes, they are required to give you a reference letter when you leave the company. Honestly, I have never been asked to provide said letter to my new employer in the 15 Years I have worked in Germany.
Most times I don't even have one during the hiring process since I am still working there. So, even if asked about a reference letter, I would just reply that I do not have one. Which, again, has not happened to me yet.
>Picture was a requirement, but that is slowly becoming less popular. Especially in Tech.
it's barely even necessary in this day and age. Just search up John Doe, Job Title, citysville, State and odds are you'll find some LinkedIn (they probably applied that way anyway). If not, a twitter or open Facebook or more. lot of the newer generations happily give out such private info.
In Germany, every large company is required to have a worker's committee, elected by the employees. They have the ability to block certain kinds of company actions, and negotiate all kinds of policies with the company. They would probably have your back in a situation like the one described in this article.
>As an employee in Germany, I feel abused and helpless.
It's worse in Austria where you have at will employment with a notice period and can be laid off without any reason so many companies can subtly force you to accept a new contract or just get laid off.
My German co-workers have the healthiest relationship with work in the company because it seems they feel empowered to set boundaries. I often wonder if it's a commonality in Germany? It doesn't seem like perfection, they complain about things too, but it seems healthier to a degree from this vantage.
And it's amazing how much nonsense they don't have to deal with just because The business will make the Americans do it so as to avoid a works council hassle :P I'd like a works council that makes my management pause before they load me up with extra work on top of my normal tasks.
What's sad is the people who get frustrated by the German's not having to deal with the bullshit and instead of thinking "we should have that!" they think "They should NOT have that!"
This type of behaviour - unilaterally changing the employment agreement without even specifying them in their entirety! - should never be possible.
I hope other employees and EU countries follow suit and slap X with more fines, if this impacted other citizens as well.