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.
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.
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").
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Metall
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.
...a government body providing impartial advice for employers and employees to improve industrial relations. I can't recommend them enough.
But I refuse to believe that every employer in the US is a piece of shit. I bet most of them are decent people.
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.
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 only German tech company I’m aware of was a fintech which was a massive fraud that collapsed on itself.
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.
First, they ignored early - like TEN YEARS - and relatively continuous warnings about fraud at Wirecard.
Then they legally targeted journalists who pointed out misconduct at Wirecard (!!!)
Then they banned short-sellers from shorting Wirecard (!!!!!!) and indeed in internal memos mentioned that short-sellers were Israelis and British citizens in some kind of bigoted justification for the ban. Gross and disgusting, but perhaps par for the course in some levels of the government there.
They tried to cover up malfeasance within their own org, including at least one, but probably more employees undertaking insider trades on Wirecard before its failure.
But don’t be too worried about the poor chauffeur-driven bureaucrats at BaFin!
They’ve since reorganised and added more senior employees to an already bloated and ineffectual regulator who are culturally in bed with the regulated entities.
The gravy train must continue.
(Just reviewing what happened through internet searches has caused steam to come out of my ears again. What the actual fuck was BaFin doing all those years?)
Do you have some opposing examples?
It doesn’t generally get included for the same reason IBM doesn’t typically get included in list of ‘tech companies’, even if they are one of the oldest actual tech companies.
Been around forever (70’s or earlier), large multinational, more about business integration and sales than any headline tech. Frankly, their tech has been a side thought for a very long time internally. It’s a blue chip that happens to involve tech, not a ‘tech company’ like any of the FAANGs. Same issue Tata/Wipro, etc. have IMO. Arguably Oracle falls in the same class too.
A parallel comment mentioned Deutsch Telecom, but they’re really not a ‘tech company’ anymore than T-Mobile, AT&T, Comcast, etc. are.
If we include it anyway, that gives Germany 2 and the US…. Several dozen? Minimum? Maybe 50ish, actually. Even if we don’t use the same broad criteria in the US.
If we use the same broad criteria in the US, probably 1/3 of the Fortune 500 qualify, if not more. Is Bank of America a ‘tech company’?
This fits Microsoft as well. Are they not in tech?
They always seemed a bit weird to me. Near as I can tell, they were first, bigger, and invented most of the tech at scale (well, kinda - porn companies were first I think?).
Also, without the N in the acronym it becomes a lot less cool sounding, and well, a lot more derogatory.
If you want examples that fit some specific definition of "tech company", please share that definition, or where one can look it up. I deliberately didn't bring up more examples than SAP, as I didn't want to get lost in the weeds.
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.
Would you mind sharing the country you were working in?
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.
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.
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).
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).
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 :)
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).
Frankly, your comment is ignorant trolling and has no place here.
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.
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.
Show me examples of firing a few underperformers easily from a company.
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.
But it's not some multi-year ordeal just to let go of one employee in the EU. Maybe in Asia, but different culture, different sentiments.
You can fire someone, but not on a whim*. You need to build a file, build history, give chances for one to improve their behaviour and performance.
*in some cases you can, like grave errors, like ignoring safety regulations, endangering others, etc.
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".
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)
Yes. And I appreciate those labor protections enough that I gladly pay for them.
I could still buy a car, a house, raise a family, have some savings, etc.
The stability and security provided by the labor protections are very much appreciated, a lot more than some extra cash would be.
That's why many EU countries have pretty strict limitations on short term contracts, like how many you can do in a row. It results in a huge reliance on contractors.
The US also has contractors.
Can you explain your thoughts here a bit further? The short term contract can be renewed or replaced with a full time contract. This should provide extra incentive to perform well compared to a full time employee (who doesn't have to worry about either), as long the as the company is a good employer.
As someone in games, this is exactly the road to getting exploited. "If I work harder and really wow them with this feature, I could get full time work!" meanwhile, there were plans to not renew anyone at the end of the project and to lay off full time workers. But you get a convinient carrot to lure starry-eyed devs with
Your "as long as the company is a good employer" is doing Atlas levels of lifing here.
I don't think that's happening in games or tech, but it's been widely observed that Gen Z is less invested in corporate than ever before (or from the boomer's POV: "nobody wants to work anymore").
It actually makes companies more hesitant to fire.
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 heard that wges are less than 50% but you end up saving more
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.)
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
> Rental prices in SF make Dublin seem cheap
Oh, yeah, they definitely do _now_, but pre-Covid it wasn’t as clear-cut.
> You’re still probably financially better off living in SF as an engineer
I think even that probably isn’t totally clear at this stage. If you’re in Big Tech(TM), you’re probably getting on the order of 60-70% pay in Dublin that you’d get in the same role in the same company in Silicon Valley (there’s some variation, but that’s about the usual ratio). If you have to pay SF rent or mortgage (plus property tax) with that, then you may not come ahead. If you can afford to buy outright or with a small mortgage, you’re probably doing better in SF, but even most big tech workers can’t afford that.
(I think the pay gap probably is bigger outside big tech, tho)
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).
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)
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.
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.
No I am definitely not.
In every company I worked for, in three different countries, my coworkers were in similar situations.
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.
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.
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.
You mention some regulatory overhead being eliminated, but more often than not, a surplus of disposable income enables passing further regulatory requirements that improve (or at least purport to) safety or quality of products and services, and that were hitherto too costly to implement. Then, most sectors aren't nearly competitive enough to keep the margins to zero, and some degree of price fixing is a natural thing that happens without any actual collusion, so things get more expensive (per unit) (or don't get cheaper). Then, like with new regulations, you also get new products and services that had no market yesterday, become popular today, and a de-facto requirement of living tomorrow. Etc.
> 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".
If I parse this correctly, then the latter is definitely the case. Real estate is the prime force that eats all surplus disposable income. Houses and apartments get smaller, get built from worse and worse materials, using inferior techniques, and designed for ever shorter life span, all while getting more and more expensive. Any sudden bump in disposable income across the population is, first and foremost, likely to be eaten by rent.
My argument is that this is not a feature of markets but rather government action.
The rise of two-income households is a great example. Historically only the husband worked for money and the wife would do domestic work like washing clothes etc. Now the washing machine washes the clothes, which takes 15 minutes of human labor instead of four hours, and the labor is then spent working a job that does something else. Meanwhile the family has more money, which allows them to buy those same additional products and service now being provided.
And yet this hasn't happened. The surplus went somewhere else. You already know where:
> You mention some regulatory overhead being eliminated, but more often than not, a surplus of disposable income enables passing further regulatory requirements that improve (or at least purport to) safety or quality of products and services
It "enables" that to happen, but we as a populace are not actually required to do that. And when we do, the overhead eats the surplus. So maybe we shouldn't?
> If I parse this correctly, then the latter is definitely the case. Real estate is the prime force that eats all surplus disposable income.
Oh, absolutely. This is why uncompetitive markets are a problem.
Real estate is an unusual case, because the really isn't anyone with a monopoly on real estate. The supply constraint comes directly from the government through zoning rules. We effectively have a cartel whose board of directors is the zoning board.
In a free market, if wages go up, people who had been living with their parents will want to get their own place, so they would use the extra money they're making to do that, and the extra money would pay construction companies to build more housing. But if that's prohibited by law then the extra money only goes to bid up the price of existing housing, people don't get housing who didn't have it before because new housing is not created, and the money just goes to landlords.
That is an independent problem that we badly need to solve, because it isn't just a problem when people make more money. If you get more benefits, the same thing happens. If companies all start providing free daycare, people save the money they'd been using to pay for daycare, they want to use the money to get their own place, rents go up. If prices go down, the same thing happens. Computers get cheaper, you can get a suitable one for $400 instead of $2000, landlords take most of the difference. This needs to be fixed or it eats any surplus that would otherwise go to the middle class. It's a huge problem, but it's a solvable problem. Build more housing.
And either way it doesn't affect whether you should prefer cash or "benefits" as compensation, because when a market with an artificial supply constraint is eating the bulk of any surplus, it would just as well eat the surplus created by benefits too. At which point we're back to "money is better than arbitrary stuff" because turning money into stuff you want has lower deadweight friction losses than turning stuff you want less into stuff you want more.
It happens basically everywhere, even when the rules are different. If I understand correctly, the primary limit in the UK is there's not enough builders, which is not to say the government isn't in the way as that's despite it also having constant planning issues with regard to the "green belt"; likewise in modern Germany, my understanding is not enough builders (and again yes the government could be better because bureaucracy is very slow, but they're not the limiting factor); likewise DDR (not even trying to be a free market) where the government was organising the construction work and trying to do it cheap and fast but there still wasn't enough.
of course, who's to say that next quarter priorities of management or shareholders shift & those "promises" evaporate?
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.
There you go.
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.
It's not my choice, it's our choice.
So deel.com is a usual choice.
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)
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.
Your argument makes no sense.
It was a bubble, but a bubble that has been inflated for a very long time.
For software engineers, it absolutely matters. For the same reason it’s going to be a pretty weird discussion about Actor/Actress pay if you just ignore Hollywood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w...
> For software engineers, it absolutely matters.
The bubble means you currently get more in San Francisco, sure, but take the bubble away and you'd still expect the US average to be higher than the EU average as it is in other industries where there isn't a bubble.
Here's the reality:
https://fortune.com/2022/11/15/tesla-texas-gigafactory-const...
> ‘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...
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.
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
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...
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)
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.
https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index
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.
How one can take a 67% pay cut and have housing still high means you have more in your pocket you’re going to have to explain.
There are loads of houses well under $1M Canadian, the average price would likely be 700k.
In USD that's about 500K. a far cry from the 2 to 3M USD in Palo Alto. 1M CDN (720kUSD) houses in Ottawa, are what you'd pay $5M for in Palo Alto.
Inflation is not unique to Ontario, you'll see the same sort if thing in SV too
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.
Palo Alto is like Kanata, price wise. Ottawa core is like San Fran.
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.
Housing has exploded in Canada over the last decade. Even in smaller cities like Ottawa, the prices are more expensive than cities like Chicago.
Then layer on top low salaries, and housing affordability is worse in Canada than many US cities.
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, …
In Australia we have codified National Employment Standards which are strictly enforced. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/national-e...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
humans are weird.
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.
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.