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Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by taurath on Monday October 11, 2021 @02:46PM (#28831512)
Really curious why only within country? Security reasons? Also why 4 weeks? Just to be available for meetings?

I find it funny that this is the American version of a nice holiday - go pay money to rent an Airbnb so you can work in a different environment.

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by arnvald on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:07PM (#28831786)
There are a number of reasons, first is that by working from another location you might be breaking the law, second is taxes - if you stay somewhere long enough they might argue you need to pay income tax there. Lastly, data protection laws vary per country and there's a chance you have to give your laptop with company data to authorities in another country, which might be a security issue.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by alasdair_ on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:10PM (#28831812)
>second is taxes - if you stay somewhere long enough they might argue you need to pay income tax there

This is true even if you work a single day in a state. Consultants at Accenture, PWC, Bain etc. end up having to file in dozens of states a year sometimes. Fortunately their employer almost universally handles all the paperwork.

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by ghaff on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:50PM (#28832260)
It depends on the state but some states, as you say, want you to file for even working a single day and states are apparently really starting to crack down.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by jdavis703 on Monday October 11, 2021 @02:58PM (#28831669)
There's different tax, visa and HR regulatory implications they probably don't want to deal with. For example if Amazon has an American worker who decides to work remotely in France (where Amazon is also established) can Amazon fire the American "at will" or are they subjected to French regulations that make terminating workers extremely difficult?
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by cutenewt on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:55PM (#28832321)
Speaking of tax, allowing employees to work from home may allow them to avoid the newly created Seattle payroll tax: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/tax/articles/city-of-s...
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by paulez on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @04:04AM (#28837250)
To be able to legally work in France, an American citizen would need a work visa which requires to have a local work contract. So they would have to follow French regulations.

It also includes a minimum of 5 weeks vacation and 2 weeks of PTO, too bad!

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by rsj_hn on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @04:06AM (#28837264)
Sorry if I misunderstood -- the 5 weeks isn't paid? If it is, what is the difference between the 5 weeks and the 2 weeks?
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by CRConrad on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @12:56PM (#28854578)
Yeah, I think you misunderstood. In Europe, "vacation" pretty much universally means "paid vacation". Otherwise, we'd call it "unpaid leave" or something.

I've only recently -- in threads here on HN in the last few weeks, in fact -- encountered the acronym "PTO", and concluded from context that it must mean "personal time off". (Right?) I also didn't quite grok what the GP meant by including those "two weeks of PTO"; WTF are those, in a European context? Can't be sick days, because AFAIK at least in most of Europe there's no quantitive limit on those: When you're sick, you're sick. Have I understood correctly that Americans who happen not to be ill for more than the "sickday limit" in a given year usually take the opportunity to "use up their sick days" even if they're healthy? (To repeat what is rapidly becoming my refrain on here: God, America is weird.)

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by rsj_hn on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @02:43PM (#28855799)
PTO = Paid Time Off.

In some companies, there is a separate "sick day" allowance, but that's rapidly vanishing. In most companies it's all put into a single bucket and your employer doesn't know or care about the reason you are not at work. It does not matter if you just want to stay at home and take care of things or fly to Venice.

If you are too sick to work for an extended time, then there is a disability insurance program. Sick days, for companies that have sick days, are for things like the flu, dental appointments in the middle of the day, etc. They are not for months-long cancer treatment.

Point being, when I go on vacation, I take PTO. There is nothing else to take if I want to be paid.

I think my company also has an unpaid leave program for unusual situations - say someone wants to take a year off to go to school but they still want their job waiting for them when they come back. But using this is very rare. Of course, each company is different as benefits are part of how firms compete for workers.

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by CRConrad on Thursday October 14, 2021 @11:55AM (#28866025)
Thanks! Learned something again. (Still rather weird.)
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by dboreham on Monday October 11, 2021 @02:49PM (#28831543)
There's really no such concept as an employee in another country. You need a subsidiary incorporated in that country and then they become an employee of that entity. So...huge paperwork hassle at the very least.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by vineyardmike on Monday October 11, 2021 @05:29PM (#28833324)
> I find it funny that this is the American version of a nice holiday - go pay money to rent an Airbnb so you can work in a different environment.

It's not.

BUT its a nice way to get a change of scenery without burning holiday time.

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @02:47AM (#28836806)
Or support your kid in that overseas one month study program. There are a lot of interesting things you can do here with flexible working arrangements.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by vineyardmike on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @01:42PM (#28842656)
Maybe you live in a cold climate and want to spend winter somewhere warm, but still work.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by wonder_er on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:34PM (#28832072)
It's likely that this is the Official Policy, but then people will just not mention to HR where they happen to be traveling to.

> Hey [team], I'll be in [foreign country] for the next 3 weeks!

and no one outside of that team ever knows anything except someone's zoom background has changed.

If it gets mentioned once in a press release, and HR forgets to work hard to implement this in an ongoing way, it becomes a non-rule.

Useful for lawyers and when talking to compliance people, but not a meaningful barrier for anyone actually going anywhere.

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by jandrewrogers on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:01PM (#28831711)
Tax, visa, and regulatory reasons. Other jurisdictions will impute residency for all legal purposes if you spend too much time there or work from there. They are trying to avoid myriad very messy legal edge cases.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by neonbones on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @01:18AM (#28836340)
There is an insightful summary of all the issues from HashiCorp founder when trying to establish an international remote-first company.

I can agree on almost everything from his post because my employer (startup) is trying to do the same, we are a US-company, in the process of acquiring by one of the giants, and I'm working and living in Ukraine with a US-based contract.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022563

Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by 8note on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @03:02AM (#28836879)
What you can do is be working while travelling, extending your vacation by 2 days. One on the way to the location, and one on the way back.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by Seattle3503 on Monday October 11, 2021 @06:40PM (#28833905)
You can visit family and take care of them. I could imagine some doing this the entire month of December for the holidays.
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by mimischi on Monday October 11, 2021 @02:46PM (#28831517)
Likely tax?
Re:Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefin... by metagame on Monday October 11, 2021 @02:48PM (#28831541)
Almost certainly. Taxation is hard enough between states, for both the employer and the employee. Adding another country in the mix and it gets really hard, especially when (as is common with tech employees) people go to other countries to work without paying the slightest attention to how incredibly many immigration and labor laws they're breaking in their target nations.