[darklajid]

Working in Germany.

The companies I've worked for offer neither of these payments, so you're getting 12 salaries. Of course my exposure is limited to tech companies and small one at that, but for me these 13th or 14th salaries are unavailable, that is only present in big corporations or interestingly for non-academic jobs (i.e. metal work shops I know do pay these, so do some construction companies). IT? Nope.

[yitchelle]

I think that this style of salary is getting less common in Germany. My work in Germany also doesn't offer the 13th or 14th salaries. Someone else mentioned that these extra payments just means that you annual salary gets divided by 13 or 14 rather than 12, so the total annual payment is the same.

[Sharlin]

It seems that in most of Europe, blue-collar trade unions have traditionally been very strong so have been able to negotiate all kinds of niceties. White-collar, not so much.