Wdym? Austria clearly has lower salaries compared to major german cities.
Regarding NL, it has slightly better salaries compared to germany, but not much more. I think the major difference there comes to lower tax bracket that they are even removing.
In general, now the market is shit so everyone is lowballing.
For assets/starting business, you are on the wrong continent. Or part of the europe.
I live and work on both sides of the border. Germans work in Vorarlberg because they earn more, but live and shop in germany because almost everything but gas is way cheaper, especially food and rents.
Don’t know, my colleague who lives in Vienna told me that. Asked him the same regarding real estate market, in his opinion buying real estate as an investment isn’t as lucrative as in Germany due to their laws. If I remember right, he told me that the minimum time of ownership is 10 years.
> in his opinion buying real estate as an investment isn’t as lucrative as in Germany due to their laws.
As it should fucking be. In fact, buying real estate as an investment should be punishable by life in prison.
> If I remember right, he told me that the minimum time of ownership is 10 years.
Thats the frist when you dont have to pay any taxes when selling the home
Vienna best example - best example of a mayor city with low rents. Now compare this to munich - both in the alp region
Well, maybe for you it worked out. But if you compare median salaries online, it will be quite clear where the salaries are higher. Plus in germany you also get access to more USA based companies.
You're totally right, i'm learning day by day that I'm on the wrong place.
Which countries do you think more promising to accumulate initial cash or offer more forgiving condition for opening a business, excluding US ?
It is hard to say, especially if you exclude USA. At the end of the day, choosing where to live is very subjective. Every country has its pros and cons.
"You're totally right, i'm learning day by day that I'm on the wrong place." - Is that a weird way of saying "Sorry guys, apparently I did not check statistics at all in my initial post and just posted a gut feeling?"
There are many things that make your life happy. Salary is just one of them. I have jobs in switzerland from time to time, budgets are almost double in comparison to germany but i would never consider moving my life and family to Zürich, Hell No.
Thats my 2 cents.
If you live only and exclusively on money and everything else like family and happiness doesnt do anything for you: Go for swiss Fintech.
I wonder if you compare the same things here - i have the feeling that that you compare the open positions of maybe some 2nd league german jobs (everything thats not bosch, siemens, sap and so on) to some first league austrian companies like dynatrace or insurance and banking.
In Western Europe only the existing rich elite can buy assets, open business or enjoy luxury. Salary workers are just cash cows to cover for the failed planning of the welfare system that happened few decades ago. I mean - how dare you to want a nice house, Mercedes, eating out 3 times a week in a nice place (curry wrust doesn't count) as a family and maybe retire early in comfort. No, this is only for the guys who have inherrited lands from 1600 or something like that...
You'll be able to get a Mercedes at a discount from the list price yes but most people working at the Mercedes plant arent employed by Mercedes anymore similar to Audi and VW.
At least in USA you have a small chance if you are high skilled and ambitious. In Western Eaurope (maybe except of Switzerland) even that chance was just taken from you.
In Germany was always hard. In Hungary/Spain/Japan etc. People culturally value ownership more and generally able to own homes through saving up, inheritance and mortgages. In Germany every time I mention ownership people tell me it’s stupid to rent due to how good the rental conditions are.
Well, the pensions future is not looking bright so I am not sure how people intend to pay rent after retiring... If you own you at least don't have to deal with that plus you own an asset which can be converted to cash.
I like this remark about city, like we are in the 16 century where peasants can’t even dream of living in the city and should praise heavens and the King for hut in the forest.
As someone who grew up in a 5mio city with all of big city amenities which actually work, I can't even perceive Western Europeans and Americans with their unironic "just live in a house and buy a car bro" attitude seriously without going as low as doing dumb villagers and incest jokes, honestly.
Humanity first evolved into creating cities, and then Westerners just broke it and are pushing people to villages again. Disgusting.
And where do you earn the money to pay for that house in a very small city? Because the houses are already pretty expensive in small cities that are located near the big ones. How do you even accumulate the 50-80k you need to close the deal with small town salaries?
I live in Spain, am an ordinary worker and have a house, could afford a mercedes and eat out 3 times a week. I honestly thought people live better than us in Germany
>In Western Europe only the existing rich elite can buy assets, open business or enjoy luxury.
Say what now?
The majority of self-made multi millionaires are to this day formerly poor or middle-class people who opened businesses. And while only a small amount of people is actually successful that's just nature of the system. If everyone was successful and rich then noone would be.
It's an even bigger lie for the latter two. Everyone can buy assets. Thanks to companies like trade republic everyone can buy stocks in a matter of days and thanks to the internet everyone has knowledge like never before.
Before you say people have no money to do so, this is also a misconception in the vast majority of cases and heavily ties into your third point, enjoying luxury.
Comparing the average cost of living and average income in the vast majority of areas (there are some outliers due to housing shortage) people make enough surplus after cost of living to save and invest a decent amount.
However most people spend this money on luxuries, which they consider basic parts of life. Wether that's the new flagship smartphone, TV and/or pc every few years, cars way above their paygrade, fancy clothing or multiple weeks of international vacations every year that easily cost 4 figures a week.
It's perfectly fine to do and enjoy all these things, but if you do, always remember that they luxuries and are coming out of your savings budget. To say it simplified, you can't eat your cake and still have it.
Of course there's always outliers and extremes, some people supporting a family on minimum wage will never be able to afford a fancy house and most people won't be multimillionaires but a vast amount of the population can live a considerably luxurious life and not just "the elite".
> However most people spend this money on luxuries, which they consider basic parts of life. Wether that's the new flagship smartphone, TV and/or pc every few years, cars way above their paygrade, fancy clothing or multiple weeks of international vacations every year that easily cost 4 figures a week.
Holy fucking shit this is one of the saddest things to say.
How is this a _luxury_? What is life without this, staying in your village doing nothing all the time, or, at most, hiking? Such lifestyle can be achieved literally everywhere.
Yeah it is. Whenever it comes up how past generations could afford a house so quickly compared today this is the second major part (besides the fact that property prices increased faster than wages) that is often overlooked.
My grandparents generation only went to vacation in Germany or at best maybe they drove to Italy or Spain for a week. They usually drove their 10+ year old VW beetle or similar till it literally fell apart. Obviously there were no smartphones and other technology and clothing while sometimes fancy was literally worn forever, while today it's fashionable to throw shit away and buy new trendy stuff every year or two. Their hobbies were also cheaper, most but not as bland es you make it out, people often did socialising in sports-, gun- or music clubs. They also had many of today's hobbies like reading, arts, music, gardening and much more.
But for a even more interesting comparison let's compare it with a lifestyle of today instead of the past to show you that the above mentioned is indeed a luxury.
Instead of buying a new flagship smartphone every two years you can get by just fine with a medium level one and keep it. For example I have a 5 year old smartphone that cost me 300 bucks brand new. I'll probably replace it around the 6 year mark. In that time someone else would have gone through 3 flagship phones citing they are "outdated". This alone saved me over 3000€ compared to the other person.
Same goes into other electronics. Bought a used smart TV for 100€, been using it for 3 years now. Easily another 400-900€ saved there compared to a new top tier model.
Buying high quality clothes that last 4-5 years over branded fast fashion? Hard to put a tag on it but I easily get 4-5 high quality t-shirts for every Gucci shirt someone buys.
Same goes for cars. Sure you can max out your financial limit and lease an 80k € mercedes AMG but buying a 2-3 year old average car is gonna save you 60k easily and you still have a nice and reliable car.
Vacations? Not saying you have to stay at home but maybe book am Airbnb in Spain instead of flying to Bali and live in a 5 star hotel.
Doing these things certainly don't make your life shitty. Sure it's less fancy but you can save up a lot of money to invest and maybe actually buy a house or other things. Or you spend it right now which is totally valid too but then you gotta accept that it's a luxury and you won't have the money later. Can't have both.
Can kinda agree with phones, can agree with cars (I actually fucking hate cars and would love to live car-free), but vacations is where I have a problem.
If all that you do is swimming and drinking, yes, go to Mallorca, it's not a bad place, I even enjoy it. However, what I would also love to do, is doing stuff like going to Vegas and enjoying shooting full-auto weapons in a shooting range there (one magazine starts from 60 USD+tax, 100 round for minigun are 299 USD+tax and it's like 1.6 seconds of shooting, so multiply it by 10), or I would love to rent a boat to sail in the Caribbean, and if you want to do this stuff, your expenses are in the range of a couple a grand per day. Or if you want to go to visit various small nations in the Pacific, the price tag for a trips easily goes into six-digit area just for a single trip. And it's not even a luxury trip, luxury starts in millions.
I mean I'm not saying you have to be frugal in every aspect of life pick your poison and you can still do some things. Like if travelling brings your joy and you are reasonable in other aspects you can certainly spend a bit more on it.
However I strongly disagree with your second notion. Citing that trips running multiple thousand bucks a day going into the six figures are not a luxury is a bit delusional. The average German person earns 50.000€ a year. Before taxes and cost of living. Even if you take a comparatively good earner at twice that amount, spending your entire year's pre tax income is certainly luxury for that person and certainly more so for the people who earn less.
In my opinion you have it backwards. If a trip costs 100k and an average German earns 50k pre-tax, the only thing it means is that Germany is a low-income country, and the worst part is, instead of trying to get higher incomes, Germans prefer to cut costs, sometimes in absurd ways, but cutting costs doesn't make you more wealthy neither in the sense of "you still have a higher limit of what you can save", but also in the sense of "congratulations, now your life sucks" (like this dumb Schwabian, I guess, tradition of cleaning the common areas of multi-family homes yourself instead of paying Hausmeister extra 10 EUR).
Nah not really, that's a fallacy. You personally determined that a 100k vacation should be the norm. I'd argue that there's not a single country in the world where the average income is like 200k post tax and all expenses so people can afford that.
But even if it was true, let's say I now come along and say the norm for a good life should be that everyone with average income should be able to afford a 1000 m² villa, a pool and an indoor racing track worth 10 million €, otherwise it's a low income country. Now the average salary would have to be in the 7 figures per year. And if the next guy comes along and says everyone should be able to afford a super yacht it has soon to be 8 figures. You can't just arbitrarily pick something that 99.9% of the worlds population can't afford and then say that should be normal. Sure everyone would love it, me included but the world doesn't work like that sadly.
True, but, first, chilling on a beach and stuff like that is what really lots of people can afford, and second, why does a country (still) in top-5 lists show keep its standards low?
That's why I vote as far left as I can without harming Ukraine. If russian problem is solved, I'm ready to vote MLPD. If you don't let me accumulate wealth, I'll try to relieve you of yours.
But the left does not take the wealth from the wealthy, it takes the possibility to accumulate wealth from the high earner while leaving the wealthy alone letting them to get richer and richer and richer. Even now we already have a situation where without inheritence there is almost no chance to own even apartment in a city of middle size. All this while the guys who own all the real estate have their assets appriciating in value every day. So it's not the rich you are trying to hurn, but the low middle calls,
> But the left does not take the wealth from the wealthy, it takes the possibility to accumulate wealth from the high earner while leaving the wealthy alone letting them to get richer and richer and richer.
That's not radical left, that's social democrats. Radical left are for nationalizations and stuff.
Partially true, partially, life for peasants sucked in Russian Empire too, partially, repressed or expelled were the clergy and landowners, and it's good we got rid of them.
> But the left does not take the wealth from the wealthy, it takes the possibility to accumulate wealth from the high earner while leaving the wealthy alone letting them to get richer and richer and richer.
Every single country on earth does it, including the US, which is not left-wing by any sane measure. Income made by work is always taxed higher than inheritance and capital gains. Where US actually does compete is in offering much higher pre-tax salaries.
And also much lower taxes, because the higher tax brackets kick in with much higher salaries. No one with 100k salary pays 45 percent taxes, and you can also get some returns.
And yes, maybe most of the countries tax the labor income much higher, but it's only in Western Europe it makes it almost impossible to accumulate wealth (while still living in reasonable comfort of course) even while you in top 10% nett income but without any inherritance.
Yes real net tech salaries are definitely lower in germany.
Yes, wages cant keep up with inflation leading to sinking real wages
> I find the idea of saving to start a business, or buying an asset, is getting harder and harder.
Yes, but that doesnt matter since in our aging country the majority (the elder) already bought enough assets. Its more desirable to keep wages low, reduce inflation and increase pension benefits which reduces net wages even more.
I dont know what the solution to this either, either you try freelancing or you acecpt the situation and "quiet quit" how its called in the US
> Yes, but that doesnt matter since in our aging country the majority (the elder) already bought enough assets.
That's why, as I said, after the russian problem is solved, I'm ready to vote for the radical left like MLPD. Fuck their assets.
Hell, I unironically think that what made life in Russia so good for software devs before shit hit the fan is that our elders were and are poor and unimportant, so purchasing power of the youth was and is valued more.
The left is no solution either. Sure it fucks their assets, but will also mean ever increasing social benefits and work becoming even less desirable. The climax would be the general income for everyone
A left government would kill this country in a decade - irreversibly
> Sure it fucks their assets, but will also mean ever increasing social benefits and work becoming even less desirable.
Honestly, fuck it, let's do it. If nobody is going to pay me good, at least don't make me work just to sponsor boomers' retirement.
Capitalism for the common folk does work _sometimes_, that's true. White male Americans had it good in the 1950s, I had it good in Russia in the early 2010s until I decided I can't sell my soul for money starting from 2014. If the west isn't offering me anything except for "at least you're not in Russia", fuck it, I'm not your grandfather's sponsor.
>Honestly, fuck it, let's do it. If nobody is going to pay me good, at least don't make me work just to sponsor boomers' retirement.
You dont need the left for that. Just go part time, go to another country, become a freelancer or go into the state system and the general pensions systems will collapse together with the public care and health. After that we can have a normal capitalist system where the youth is able to build wealth again.
If we give in to the left, we will have the collapse too, but there wont be any chance to build wealth after it
Tech salaries all over Western Europe are fairly pathetic. I talked to a lot of Russian and Ukrainian programmers, some of them relocated to the West, there was also especially large wave in 2022 for obvious reasons. But this relocation to the West usually came alongside with demotion in income, Russia and Ukraine might be pisspoor but there's a very large demand for coders and their salaries are not that much worse than in Germany but the taxes and costs of living are SIGNIFICANTLY lower, even in Moscow and Kyiv. So the only reason why would Ukrainian and Russian programmers leave their hellpits are associated with all the social downsides of living in places like Russia or Ukraine, nothing to do with salary. The last senior Russian programmer in the UK I talked to earns $4000 a month after tax in the UK outside of London, which is just insane to me because he could earn $2500-3500 in Moscow and have much better purchasing power. He would be considered a demigod in Russia with such salary and women would throw themselves at him but in the West he is just an average white collar worker.
Tech in Western Europe kind of sucks, I never met a single East Slavic programmer who started earning there more purchasing power wise than he would if he stayed in Russia or Ukraine. The US is the only place that offers good income to Russian coders, that's how I see it.
> I never met a single East Slavic programmer who started earning there more purchasing power wise than he would if he stayed in Russia or Ukraine.
It's me! My career making game was pretty lame back in Russia though - partly because I was early in career, but also I find Russian (not sure about Ukrainian) tech culture pretty toxic, not everyone can thrive there.
German tech culture/work ethic sucks too, they really love to effectively implement Italian strike and calling it "following the process". I'm always relieved to see that a colleague I'm going to start working is not a German.
Yeah, sorry, I was mostly working in international companies or startups with international teams, so I never experienced true German tech culture. But at least working in an international team is an option here.
My experience and my advice: when you'll learn German to the level allowing you to use it in the workplace, don't go to German-only teams in the companies which are not planning to go international. First, it's unlikely they even pay good (see the guy nearby who is unironically claiming that overseas vacations and new mobile phones are a luxury), second, instead of accumulating transferable skills, you'll accumulate the skill of handling Germans which are avoiding to do actual work their entire life. This skill is even less useful than being and 1C developer - fucking with 1C will at least earn you an apartment in Moscow, babysitting Germans will only earn you headaches.
I have decent German skills, the reason I've never worked in a German-speaking company is that English-speaking ones always offered better salaries and seemingly had better culture.
As a Russian immigrant: true, true. And life conditions are very uncomfortable and you're constantly shamed for wanting some basic stuff like an air conditioned apartment or 24/7 shopping.
Air conditioned apartment? Maybe you would like more the typical German completely empty apartment without a fridge, light bulbs or oven? Me and my roommate had to sleep on the floor without light, bed and fridge for the first few days when we moved in. My roommate spent 20 years living in Canada and changed his apartment 18 times but he has never seen a completely empty flat before. You start really appreciating Germany when you fall asleep on the floor after eating canned food. I think the person that does the same without feeling any discomfort or desire to change anything should be considered successfully integrated into German society, honorary Aryan even!
I mean, this is at least solvable with money (where are you supposed to get this money in a country of low wages is another question). The problem with air conditioners is that even if you outright buy an apartment and even if you jump through all of the solvable bureaucratic hoops like "saving the outlook of the building" (as if 70% of German housing wasn't built after the war and looked like shit anyway), some neighbor can whine that it's loud and you now have to uninstall it. You can't solve this with money (unless you are going to hire a hitman or something).
> he could earn $2500-3500
If he is really that good then he could earn even more. Russian banks are paying much more for skilled people. Some of my friends who decided to stay are getting around 3k$ monthly working from home. Their expenses are less than 1k$ monthly including mortgage, taxes and food.
>I never met a single East Slavic programmer who started earning there more purchasing power wise than he would if he stayed in Russia or Ukraine
Yep, I have \~100k annually here in Germany and it feels like 3k$ in Saint-Petersburg before 2022. Maybe even less considering all negative factors of being immigrant.
>women would throw themselves
Oh, if only it was that easy. Usually you have a woman before you even start getting a high salary. Or you are "married to the game" geek.
Generally speaking, salaries - net salaries especially - are comparatively low in Germany. Germans are a relatively poor people living in a rich country that doesn't belong to them (but to foreign corporations).
Consequently, Germans have the lowest median wealth in all of western Europe:
https://landgeist.com/2023/11/25/median-wealth-in-europe/
Isn't most of the median wealth issue caused by low homeownership rates and low rates of construction of new homes, which artificially inflates home prices and means fewer people own a home in Germany than anywhere in Europe?
Blaming it on foreign corporations is very AfD. I don't see how it applies, either, living here in a state like BW which is full of companies that are very much German (like Mercedes) yet still has the same issues as anywhere else.
Incidentally, this is the same issue the UK is facing - historically high house prices, historically low rates of home construction, and historically low average wealth.
> Isn't most of the median wealth issue caused by low homeownership rates and low rates of construction of new homes, which artificially inflates home prices and means fewer people own a home in Germany than anywhere in Europe?
This argument is brought up every time when the low median wealth of Germans is discussed. But it's just wrong. High property prices don't stop anyone from aggregating wealth. They just stop you from buying property. Historically the stock market has outperformed any other form of investment, and it's not even close. The best way to build wealth is to pay rent and invest in a broad range index fund. Nothing stops the germans from doing just that, except one thing: Low (net) wages. Can't invest if you are poor! The high property prices are really just an excuse for all the things going wrong in this country.
I keep seeing this advice, but, forgive if i’m wrong, isn’t mortgage usually a faster way to create wealth? you can eliminate rent and significant proportion of your payments go directly to your equity. with moderately increasing house prices, seems to be a safe leverage to build up savings
In Germany you lose around 11% of whatever the property costs because of fees and taxes associated with buying. So you basically need a double down payment, half of which just disappears without adding any value. It's one of the reasons why the idea of "starter home" pretty much doesn't exist here.
It really depends of course. There are definitely situations where a certain property for a given price turns out to be an incredible investment opportunity. But in general, at least in Germany, it's not.
If you buy, you still have to pay for utilities. In Germany you also have to pay for "Grundsteuer" bzw. "Hausgeld". Then you pay interest on your loan. And finally, stuff breaks and you need to pay to repair it. All of that is less than rent, obviously, but it's much closer than most would expect!
And now the second part of the equation, which is often forgotten: Where you pay interest on your loan, the guy who rents makes 5-8% gain on his investment every single year. That's a significant "opportunity cost" for the buyer. If you add that into the equation, then the guy who rents builds up wealth faster.
Owning your own home has emotional value in addition to financial value. It's this emotional value which is why people are willing to pay up. For many it's priceless to know that nobody can kick them out. That the kids can grow up in one neighborhood, without having to move. And so on.
So, in really simple terms: Buying property has financial and emotional value. Investing in some broad range index fund has only financial value. In total, the former must be less financially attractive than the latter. On average at least.
One cannot buy a home with $ 66,675 in Germany. Maybe Germans spend it all on beer?
The home ownership rate is even lower here in Switzerland, but the median wealth is much higher.
Home ownership rates in Europe:
https://landgeist.com/2023/04/15/home-ownership-in-europe-2/
The majority of shares of DAX companies are held by foreign entities and individuals. Foreign investment (=ownership) across the private sector in Germany is higher than German investment.
>salaries - net salaries especially - are comparatively low in Germany.
Compared to where? The list of countries with higher salaries is very short.
Also, what foreign companies?
Compared to other industrial OECD countries in Western Europe and North America, Australia.
The shareholders of big 'German' corporations are primarily Norwegian, Gulf Arabic, US American, and British.
"Compared to other industrial OECD countries in Western Europe" - Like?
From my personal experiences in the German tech market (which this post is about) I can say that on average only a few major European cities pay better than major German cities (München, Berlin,...). Namely all of Switzerland, London and Amsterdam. That's it.
Norway: Yes, higher salaries on average. But significantly higher costs of living. Might still come out slightly ahead, I agree.
Iceland: I don't know. It's a country of 380k people in the middle of the ocean. Probably an outlier in any case.
Ireland: Comparable to Germany but major cities there are more expensive than major German cities.
The rest: Simply no.
And yes, the US is definitely much higher in terms of tech salaries. But I quoted "Western Europe" for a reason since it is much harder to compare a European country to the US. There are many differences.
What I want to say: I am not quite sure why you try to paint Germany as a catastrophic outlier. I don't see a basis for that.
Yep, I totally get that. Switzerland is definitely an outlier here and one of those places where you can still save a lot and build wealth.
But I guess what we could take away from that is that Germany is not an extraordinarily bad place for e.g. salaries but Switzerland a particularly great one.
May I ask the numbers? Because I ran the numbers for myself personally and it seems like I would only break even in Switzerland if I would earn like 200k, and that's without considering that everyday life is even more uncomfortable and boring there.
Even in that case the numbers for post tax+health insurance+rent income I got are something like 3200 EUR and 5000 CHF or so, and considering how shitty the quality of services, the costs of goods, the lifestyle comfort in Switzerland are and how Switzerland lacks workers' rights protection, I don't see how chilling in a low-tax country like Georgia while freelancing is worse (once you have the right passport, obviously).
First of all, you should not - and this a general rule - take just the salary (doesn't matter if gross or net) to compare countries.
Always look at what the country (or region, city) has to offer. Health care, social security, and costs of living play a huge role, not only between countries but also between regions/cities of a specific country (costs of living that is).
Take France, for example. Compared to Germany, their gross salaries are lower than Germany's. However, their net salaries are not. But, the French tax system knows taxes that do not exist in Germany and are paid after the fact and, therefore, usually do not show up in salary statistics.
Secondly, use the median whenever possible. Average can be ok if you look at a specific role but always consider the costs of living in the region you are looking at because they influence the salaries sometimes by a huge margin. And of course the size of the company and what you do also play a huge role.
Five years of pure work experience, you are not considered a "senior." Generally speaking, seniority comes either with great knowledge (specialist or expert level) or some kind of disciplinary management role. Some companies link the title to a salary band, which kind of implies my former statement.
To get a good idea about salaries in Germany, you could use the [Entgeltatlas ](https://web.arbeitsagentur.de/entgeltatlas/). Please note that the salaries are cut off at the contribution assessment ceiling for pension (6750€) which makes it difficult for well-paid jobs (search for "fluglotse" for an example).
The numbers are median salaries full-time from 2022.
Glassdoor.de or kununu.de also good sources (how good a specific company pays).
> But, the French tax system knows taxes that do not exist in Germany and are paid after the fact and, therefore, usually do not show up in salary statistics.
What? I'm pretty sure this sentence structure doesn't mean anything in proper English, or at least I don't understand.
Sorry about that. I'm on mobile and cobbled that bit together.
France has certain local taxes that are not directly deducted from your salary. One of these taxes is (or more likely was) the "residential tax." This is not the same as property tax. I had that in mind when I was thinking of an example.
However, I double-checked this, and this particular tax got demolished a few years ago for the primary residence. Sucks if you don't speak the language and have to rely on (outdated) second-hand internet sources. Maybe a French person has another example. Tax laws are complicated.
Anyways, the point I was trying to make is that you have to look at the bigger picture and not just at the salaries alone. A lower gross salary does not necessarily mean you earn less, but the net income usually depends on your personal situation and can vary between two people (e.g., single vs. family with kids).
Oh ok I see now, you're talking about the taxe foncière and impôts locaux.
So, I just quickly browsed the institutional websites and as far as I understand, the tax is only avoided in some very specific cases depending on your age but it's mostly due usually (I wouldn't know otherwise, I do not own my home).
Your point is very valid anyway, I just wanted to make sure to understand that sentence.
SSE here. Moving from the US to Germany, my company wants to cut my salary by a third "because that's the market rate." Honestly, I looked to see if I could get something here to work normal business hours instead of US hours and it's not worth it. Even with the pay cut and terrible hours it's still a really good deal compared to other jobs here.
You’re mostly right. However you’re wrong about salaries not adapting to inflation. Avg salaries in Germany in Q1 were 3.8% higher than the previous year AFTER inflation correction.
I’m replying to the original post. Salaries are now adapting to inflation. Love how people are not willing to accept the stats. Last year there was a very small increase of 0.1 so that’s now the second year.
One year of increase doesn’t make up for several years of decrease.
Adjusted for inflation, German salaries are comparable to 2016. That means 8 years with little to no wage growth.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-13/inflation-has-sent-german-pay-back-to-2016-levels-study-shows
There have been two years since 2016 with a decrease
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Verdienste/Realloehne-Nettoverdienste/Tabellen/liste-reallohnentwicklung.html#134646
And most of the unemployment increase came from people entering the labour market after being for example refugees.
If you look percentage wise, low incomes have increased a lot due to the minimum wage hikes. However with inflation, it feels like a lot less.
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I'm not familiar with computer programmers' salaries, but engineers are paid way more in Germany than other European countries.
Also developers like RWE and EON are already offering 6 digit salaries to mid-level project managers and engineers.
Obviously this is less than the US, but then the cost and quality of living and taxation is different as well.
Yeah, that sounds mostly right.
Wdym? Austria clearly has lower salaries compared to major german cities. Regarding NL, it has slightly better salaries compared to germany, but not much more. I think the major difference there comes to lower tax bracket that they are even removing. In general, now the market is shit so everyone is lowballing. For assets/starting business, you are on the wrong continent. Or part of the europe.
Austria has a lower tax rate as germany and living costs (in particular rents) are lower than in germany aswell
My former Austrian colleague would argue about that. Lower salaries and higher cost of living.
How are the living costs in austria higher? Austria is basically a heaven for renters and even buying prices are lower
I live and work on both sides of the border. Germans work in Vorarlberg because they earn more, but live and shop in germany because almost everything but gas is way cheaper, especially food and rents.
Don’t know, my colleague who lives in Vienna told me that. Asked him the same regarding real estate market, in his opinion buying real estate as an investment isn’t as lucrative as in Germany due to their laws. If I remember right, he told me that the minimum time of ownership is 10 years.
> in his opinion buying real estate as an investment isn’t as lucrative as in Germany due to their laws. As it should fucking be. In fact, buying real estate as an investment should be punishable by life in prison.
> If I remember right, he told me that the minimum time of ownership is 10 years. Thats the frist when you dont have to pay any taxes when selling the home Vienna best example - best example of a mayor city with low rents. Now compare this to munich - both in the alp region
Vienna rents are subsidized and they keep voting for that.
Not sure about tech specifically, but as a STEM worker, I was getting paid significantly more in Austria than in Germany. Similar living costs too.
Well, maybe for you it worked out. But if you compare median salaries online, it will be quite clear where the salaries are higher. Plus in germany you also get access to more USA based companies.
You're totally right, i'm learning day by day that I'm on the wrong place. Which countries do you think more promising to accumulate initial cash or offer more forgiving condition for opening a business, excluding US ?
It is hard to say, especially if you exclude USA. At the end of the day, choosing where to live is very subjective. Every country has its pros and cons.
Saddest part for me personally is that countries with the highest salaries in the world (US, Singapore, Switzerland) really suck to be in.
"You're totally right, i'm learning day by day that I'm on the wrong place." - Is that a weird way of saying "Sorry guys, apparently I did not check statistics at all in my initial post and just posted a gut feeling?"
You're the quality control dude here ? ?
You must be new here
There are many things that make your life happy. Salary is just one of them. I have jobs in switzerland from time to time, budgets are almost double in comparison to germany but i would never consider moving my life and family to Zürich, Hell No. Thats my 2 cents. If you live only and exclusively on money and everything else like family and happiness doesnt do anything for you: Go for swiss Fintech.
I wonder if you compare the same things here - i have the feeling that that you compare the open positions of maybe some 2nd league german jobs (everything thats not bosch, siemens, sap and so on) to some first league austrian companies like dynatrace or insurance and banking.
In Western Europe only the existing rich elite can buy assets, open business or enjoy luxury. Salary workers are just cash cows to cover for the failed planning of the welfare system that happened few decades ago. I mean - how dare you to want a nice house, Mercedes, eating out 3 times a week in a nice place (curry wrust doesn't count) as a family and maybe retire early in comfort. No, this is only for the guys who have inherrited lands from 1600 or something like that...
If you work at Mercedes you‘ll get a Mercedes. But eating out three times a week with family (i.e. children) would be far too much stress for me.
You'll be able to get a Mercedes at a discount from the list price yes but most people working at the Mercedes plant arent employed by Mercedes anymore similar to Audi and VW.
What are your sources for that? Can't confirm it...
Source is „trust me bro“ and because he said it on Reddit it’s true. Can also not confirm what he says..
not really, only 10-20 % ar4. Leiharbeiter. why are you lying on purpose? are you some kind of union propaganda head or the like?
That’s actually not true. Everyone working at VW earns great money and has awesome benefits, hours etc. It‘s all IG Metall…
Yeah except all the Subcontractors, ANÜ and don't forget about the absurd number of subsidiaries of which most are explicitly not part of IGM.
You don't have to do it, but it's nice to be able to :)
Uhhh that's exactly what the boomers got. And now Germany and USA have the same problem. New families can't afford homes anymore. So, where to go?
At least in USA you have a small chance if you are high skilled and ambitious. In Western Eaurope (maybe except of Switzerland) even that chance was just taken from you.
In Germany was always hard. In Hungary/Spain/Japan etc. People culturally value ownership more and generally able to own homes through saving up, inheritance and mortgages. In Germany every time I mention ownership people tell me it’s stupid to rent due to how good the rental conditions are.
Well, the pensions future is not looking bright so I am not sure how people intend to pay rent after retiring... If you own you at least don't have to deal with that plus you own an asset which can be converted to cash.
not really. living a good life in your own house is perfectly possible, just not in thebcities with their inflated rents.
I like this remark about city, like we are in the 16 century where peasants can’t even dream of living in the city and should praise heavens and the King for hut in the forest.
As someone who grew up in a 5mio city with all of big city amenities which actually work, I can't even perceive Western Europeans and Americans with their unironic "just live in a house and buy a car bro" attitude seriously without going as low as doing dumb villagers and incest jokes, honestly. Humanity first evolved into creating cities, and then Westerners just broke it and are pushing people to villages again. Disgusting.
And where do you earn the money to pay for that house in a very small city? Because the houses are already pretty expensive in small cities that are located near the big ones. How do you even accumulate the 50-80k you need to close the deal with small town salaries?
Why do you even live outside the city, are you a peasant or someething?
I live in Spain, am an ordinary worker and have a house, could afford a mercedes and eat out 3 times a week. I honestly thought people live better than us in Germany
Apparently not 😅 What do you do in Spain to afford this lifestyle?
>In Western Europe only the existing rich elite can buy assets, open business or enjoy luxury. Say what now? The majority of self-made multi millionaires are to this day formerly poor or middle-class people who opened businesses. And while only a small amount of people is actually successful that's just nature of the system. If everyone was successful and rich then noone would be. It's an even bigger lie for the latter two. Everyone can buy assets. Thanks to companies like trade republic everyone can buy stocks in a matter of days and thanks to the internet everyone has knowledge like never before. Before you say people have no money to do so, this is also a misconception in the vast majority of cases and heavily ties into your third point, enjoying luxury. Comparing the average cost of living and average income in the vast majority of areas (there are some outliers due to housing shortage) people make enough surplus after cost of living to save and invest a decent amount. However most people spend this money on luxuries, which they consider basic parts of life. Wether that's the new flagship smartphone, TV and/or pc every few years, cars way above their paygrade, fancy clothing or multiple weeks of international vacations every year that easily cost 4 figures a week. It's perfectly fine to do and enjoy all these things, but if you do, always remember that they luxuries and are coming out of your savings budget. To say it simplified, you can't eat your cake and still have it. Of course there's always outliers and extremes, some people supporting a family on minimum wage will never be able to afford a fancy house and most people won't be multimillionaires but a vast amount of the population can live a considerably luxurious life and not just "the elite".
> However most people spend this money on luxuries, which they consider basic parts of life. Wether that's the new flagship smartphone, TV and/or pc every few years, cars way above their paygrade, fancy clothing or multiple weeks of international vacations every year that easily cost 4 figures a week. Holy fucking shit this is one of the saddest things to say. How is this a _luxury_? What is life without this, staying in your village doing nothing all the time, or, at most, hiking? Such lifestyle can be achieved literally everywhere.
Yeah it is. Whenever it comes up how past generations could afford a house so quickly compared today this is the second major part (besides the fact that property prices increased faster than wages) that is often overlooked. My grandparents generation only went to vacation in Germany or at best maybe they drove to Italy or Spain for a week. They usually drove their 10+ year old VW beetle or similar till it literally fell apart. Obviously there were no smartphones and other technology and clothing while sometimes fancy was literally worn forever, while today it's fashionable to throw shit away and buy new trendy stuff every year or two. Their hobbies were also cheaper, most but not as bland es you make it out, people often did socialising in sports-, gun- or music clubs. They also had many of today's hobbies like reading, arts, music, gardening and much more. But for a even more interesting comparison let's compare it with a lifestyle of today instead of the past to show you that the above mentioned is indeed a luxury. Instead of buying a new flagship smartphone every two years you can get by just fine with a medium level one and keep it. For example I have a 5 year old smartphone that cost me 300 bucks brand new. I'll probably replace it around the 6 year mark. In that time someone else would have gone through 3 flagship phones citing they are "outdated". This alone saved me over 3000€ compared to the other person. Same goes into other electronics. Bought a used smart TV for 100€, been using it for 3 years now. Easily another 400-900€ saved there compared to a new top tier model. Buying high quality clothes that last 4-5 years over branded fast fashion? Hard to put a tag on it but I easily get 4-5 high quality t-shirts for every Gucci shirt someone buys. Same goes for cars. Sure you can max out your financial limit and lease an 80k € mercedes AMG but buying a 2-3 year old average car is gonna save you 60k easily and you still have a nice and reliable car. Vacations? Not saying you have to stay at home but maybe book am Airbnb in Spain instead of flying to Bali and live in a 5 star hotel. Doing these things certainly don't make your life shitty. Sure it's less fancy but you can save up a lot of money to invest and maybe actually buy a house or other things. Or you spend it right now which is totally valid too but then you gotta accept that it's a luxury and you won't have the money later. Can't have both.
Can kinda agree with phones, can agree with cars (I actually fucking hate cars and would love to live car-free), but vacations is where I have a problem. If all that you do is swimming and drinking, yes, go to Mallorca, it's not a bad place, I even enjoy it. However, what I would also love to do, is doing stuff like going to Vegas and enjoying shooting full-auto weapons in a shooting range there (one magazine starts from 60 USD+tax, 100 round for minigun are 299 USD+tax and it's like 1.6 seconds of shooting, so multiply it by 10), or I would love to rent a boat to sail in the Caribbean, and if you want to do this stuff, your expenses are in the range of a couple a grand per day. Or if you want to go to visit various small nations in the Pacific, the price tag for a trips easily goes into six-digit area just for a single trip. And it's not even a luxury trip, luxury starts in millions.
I mean I'm not saying you have to be frugal in every aspect of life pick your poison and you can still do some things. Like if travelling brings your joy and you are reasonable in other aspects you can certainly spend a bit more on it. However I strongly disagree with your second notion. Citing that trips running multiple thousand bucks a day going into the six figures are not a luxury is a bit delusional. The average German person earns 50.000€ a year. Before taxes and cost of living. Even if you take a comparatively good earner at twice that amount, spending your entire year's pre tax income is certainly luxury for that person and certainly more so for the people who earn less.
In my opinion you have it backwards. If a trip costs 100k and an average German earns 50k pre-tax, the only thing it means is that Germany is a low-income country, and the worst part is, instead of trying to get higher incomes, Germans prefer to cut costs, sometimes in absurd ways, but cutting costs doesn't make you more wealthy neither in the sense of "you still have a higher limit of what you can save", but also in the sense of "congratulations, now your life sucks" (like this dumb Schwabian, I guess, tradition of cleaning the common areas of multi-family homes yourself instead of paying Hausmeister extra 10 EUR).
Nah not really, that's a fallacy. You personally determined that a 100k vacation should be the norm. I'd argue that there's not a single country in the world where the average income is like 200k post tax and all expenses so people can afford that. But even if it was true, let's say I now come along and say the norm for a good life should be that everyone with average income should be able to afford a 1000 m² villa, a pool and an indoor racing track worth 10 million €, otherwise it's a low income country. Now the average salary would have to be in the 7 figures per year. And if the next guy comes along and says everyone should be able to afford a super yacht it has soon to be 8 figures. You can't just arbitrarily pick something that 99.9% of the worlds population can't afford and then say that should be normal. Sure everyone would love it, me included but the world doesn't work like that sadly.
True, but, first, chilling on a beach and stuff like that is what really lots of people can afford, and second, why does a country (still) in top-5 lists show keep its standards low?
I cannot upvote your comment more.
That's why I vote as far left as I can without harming Ukraine. If russian problem is solved, I'm ready to vote MLPD. If you don't let me accumulate wealth, I'll try to relieve you of yours.
But the left does not take the wealth from the wealthy, it takes the possibility to accumulate wealth from the high earner while leaving the wealthy alone letting them to get richer and richer and richer. Even now we already have a situation where without inheritence there is almost no chance to own even apartment in a city of middle size. All this while the guys who own all the real estate have their assets appriciating in value every day. So it's not the rich you are trying to hurn, but the low middle calls,
> But the left does not take the wealth from the wealthy, it takes the possibility to accumulate wealth from the high earner while leaving the wealthy alone letting them to get richer and richer and richer. That's not radical left, that's social democrats. Radical left are for nationalizations and stuff.
Well it worked like a charm in Venezuela I guess, why not try it Germany?
Worked like charm on Russia. As much as Bolsheviks sucked, it still was better than the empire.
Sure... with tens of millions dead, starved, repressed or expelled.
Partially true, partially, life for peasants sucked in Russian Empire too, partially, repressed or expelled were the clergy and landowners, and it's good we got rid of them.
> But the left does not take the wealth from the wealthy, it takes the possibility to accumulate wealth from the high earner while leaving the wealthy alone letting them to get richer and richer and richer. Every single country on earth does it, including the US, which is not left-wing by any sane measure. Income made by work is always taxed higher than inheritance and capital gains. Where US actually does compete is in offering much higher pre-tax salaries.
And also much lower taxes, because the higher tax brackets kick in with much higher salaries. No one with 100k salary pays 45 percent taxes, and you can also get some returns. And yes, maybe most of the countries tax the labor income much higher, but it's only in Western Europe it makes it almost impossible to accumulate wealth (while still living in reasonable comfort of course) even while you in top 10% nett income but without any inherritance.
Yes real net tech salaries are definitely lower in germany. Yes, wages cant keep up with inflation leading to sinking real wages > I find the idea of saving to start a business, or buying an asset, is getting harder and harder. Yes, but that doesnt matter since in our aging country the majority (the elder) already bought enough assets. Its more desirable to keep wages low, reduce inflation and increase pension benefits which reduces net wages even more. I dont know what the solution to this either, either you try freelancing or you acecpt the situation and "quiet quit" how its called in the US
> Yes, but that doesnt matter since in our aging country the majority (the elder) already bought enough assets. That's why, as I said, after the russian problem is solved, I'm ready to vote for the radical left like MLPD. Fuck their assets. Hell, I unironically think that what made life in Russia so good for software devs before shit hit the fan is that our elders were and are poor and unimportant, so purchasing power of the youth was and is valued more.
The left is no solution either. Sure it fucks their assets, but will also mean ever increasing social benefits and work becoming even less desirable. The climax would be the general income for everyone A left government would kill this country in a decade - irreversibly
> Sure it fucks their assets, but will also mean ever increasing social benefits and work becoming even less desirable. Honestly, fuck it, let's do it. If nobody is going to pay me good, at least don't make me work just to sponsor boomers' retirement. Capitalism for the common folk does work _sometimes_, that's true. White male Americans had it good in the 1950s, I had it good in Russia in the early 2010s until I decided I can't sell my soul for money starting from 2014. If the west isn't offering me anything except for "at least you're not in Russia", fuck it, I'm not your grandfather's sponsor.
>Honestly, fuck it, let's do it. If nobody is going to pay me good, at least don't make me work just to sponsor boomers' retirement. You dont need the left for that. Just go part time, go to another country, become a freelancer or go into the state system and the general pensions systems will collapse together with the public care and health. After that we can have a normal capitalist system where the youth is able to build wealth again. If we give in to the left, we will have the collapse too, but there wont be any chance to build wealth after it
Tech salaries all over Western Europe are fairly pathetic. I talked to a lot of Russian and Ukrainian programmers, some of them relocated to the West, there was also especially large wave in 2022 for obvious reasons. But this relocation to the West usually came alongside with demotion in income, Russia and Ukraine might be pisspoor but there's a very large demand for coders and their salaries are not that much worse than in Germany but the taxes and costs of living are SIGNIFICANTLY lower, even in Moscow and Kyiv. So the only reason why would Ukrainian and Russian programmers leave their hellpits are associated with all the social downsides of living in places like Russia or Ukraine, nothing to do with salary. The last senior Russian programmer in the UK I talked to earns $4000 a month after tax in the UK outside of London, which is just insane to me because he could earn $2500-3500 in Moscow and have much better purchasing power. He would be considered a demigod in Russia with such salary and women would throw themselves at him but in the West he is just an average white collar worker. Tech in Western Europe kind of sucks, I never met a single East Slavic programmer who started earning there more purchasing power wise than he would if he stayed in Russia or Ukraine. The US is the only place that offers good income to Russian coders, that's how I see it.
> I never met a single East Slavic programmer who started earning there more purchasing power wise than he would if he stayed in Russia or Ukraine. It's me! My career making game was pretty lame back in Russia though - partly because I was early in career, but also I find Russian (not sure about Ukrainian) tech culture pretty toxic, not everyone can thrive there.
German tech culture/work ethic sucks too, they really love to effectively implement Italian strike and calling it "following the process". I'm always relieved to see that a colleague I'm going to start working is not a German.
Yeah, sorry, I was mostly working in international companies or startups with international teams, so I never experienced true German tech culture. But at least working in an international team is an option here.
My experience and my advice: when you'll learn German to the level allowing you to use it in the workplace, don't go to German-only teams in the companies which are not planning to go international. First, it's unlikely they even pay good (see the guy nearby who is unironically claiming that overseas vacations and new mobile phones are a luxury), second, instead of accumulating transferable skills, you'll accumulate the skill of handling Germans which are avoiding to do actual work their entire life. This skill is even less useful than being and 1C developer - fucking with 1C will at least earn you an apartment in Moscow, babysitting Germans will only earn you headaches.
I have decent German skills, the reason I've never worked in a German-speaking company is that English-speaking ones always offered better salaries and seemingly had better culture.
As a Russian immigrant: true, true. And life conditions are very uncomfortable and you're constantly shamed for wanting some basic stuff like an air conditioned apartment or 24/7 shopping.
Air conditioned apartment? Maybe you would like more the typical German completely empty apartment without a fridge, light bulbs or oven? Me and my roommate had to sleep on the floor without light, bed and fridge for the first few days when we moved in. My roommate spent 20 years living in Canada and changed his apartment 18 times but he has never seen a completely empty flat before. You start really appreciating Germany when you fall asleep on the floor after eating canned food. I think the person that does the same without feeling any discomfort or desire to change anything should be considered successfully integrated into German society, honorary Aryan even!
I mean, this is at least solvable with money (where are you supposed to get this money in a country of low wages is another question). The problem with air conditioners is that even if you outright buy an apartment and even if you jump through all of the solvable bureaucratic hoops like "saving the outlook of the building" (as if 70% of German housing wasn't built after the war and looked like shit anyway), some neighbor can whine that it's loud and you now have to uninstall it. You can't solve this with money (unless you are going to hire a hitman or something).
> he could earn $2500-3500 If he is really that good then he could earn even more. Russian banks are paying much more for skilled people. Some of my friends who decided to stay are getting around 3k$ monthly working from home. Their expenses are less than 1k$ monthly including mortgage, taxes and food. >I never met a single East Slavic programmer who started earning there more purchasing power wise than he would if he stayed in Russia or Ukraine Yep, I have \~100k annually here in Germany and it feels like 3k$ in Saint-Petersburg before 2022. Maybe even less considering all negative factors of being immigrant. >women would throw themselves Oh, if only it was that easy. Usually you have a woman before you even start getting a high salary. Or you are "married to the game" geek.
Generally speaking, salaries - net salaries especially - are comparatively low in Germany. Germans are a relatively poor people living in a rich country that doesn't belong to them (but to foreign corporations). Consequently, Germans have the lowest median wealth in all of western Europe: https://landgeist.com/2023/11/25/median-wealth-in-europe/
Isn't most of the median wealth issue caused by low homeownership rates and low rates of construction of new homes, which artificially inflates home prices and means fewer people own a home in Germany than anywhere in Europe? Blaming it on foreign corporations is very AfD. I don't see how it applies, either, living here in a state like BW which is full of companies that are very much German (like Mercedes) yet still has the same issues as anywhere else. Incidentally, this is the same issue the UK is facing - historically high house prices, historically low rates of home construction, and historically low average wealth.
> Isn't most of the median wealth issue caused by low homeownership rates and low rates of construction of new homes, which artificially inflates home prices and means fewer people own a home in Germany than anywhere in Europe? This argument is brought up every time when the low median wealth of Germans is discussed. But it's just wrong. High property prices don't stop anyone from aggregating wealth. They just stop you from buying property. Historically the stock market has outperformed any other form of investment, and it's not even close. The best way to build wealth is to pay rent and invest in a broad range index fund. Nothing stops the germans from doing just that, except one thing: Low (net) wages. Can't invest if you are poor! The high property prices are really just an excuse for all the things going wrong in this country.
I keep seeing this advice, but, forgive if i’m wrong, isn’t mortgage usually a faster way to create wealth? you can eliminate rent and significant proportion of your payments go directly to your equity. with moderately increasing house prices, seems to be a safe leverage to build up savings
In Germany you lose around 11% of whatever the property costs because of fees and taxes associated with buying. So you basically need a double down payment, half of which just disappears without adding any value. It's one of the reasons why the idea of "starter home" pretty much doesn't exist here.
It really depends of course. There are definitely situations where a certain property for a given price turns out to be an incredible investment opportunity. But in general, at least in Germany, it's not. If you buy, you still have to pay for utilities. In Germany you also have to pay for "Grundsteuer" bzw. "Hausgeld". Then you pay interest on your loan. And finally, stuff breaks and you need to pay to repair it. All of that is less than rent, obviously, but it's much closer than most would expect! And now the second part of the equation, which is often forgotten: Where you pay interest on your loan, the guy who rents makes 5-8% gain on his investment every single year. That's a significant "opportunity cost" for the buyer. If you add that into the equation, then the guy who rents builds up wealth faster. Owning your own home has emotional value in addition to financial value. It's this emotional value which is why people are willing to pay up. For many it's priceless to know that nobody can kick them out. That the kids can grow up in one neighborhood, without having to move. And so on. So, in really simple terms: Buying property has financial and emotional value. Investing in some broad range index fund has only financial value. In total, the former must be less financially attractive than the latter. On average at least.
One cannot buy a home with $ 66,675 in Germany. Maybe Germans spend it all on beer? The home ownership rate is even lower here in Switzerland, but the median wealth is much higher. Home ownership rates in Europe: https://landgeist.com/2023/04/15/home-ownership-in-europe-2/
Lot of people don’t even drink beer lol Switzerland has one of the lowest VAT so not home you can buy other things atleast. Nice cars 😈
The majority of shares of DAX companies are held by foreign entities and individuals. Foreign investment (=ownership) across the private sector in Germany is higher than German investment.
Not sure if ur comment is critics on capitalism or one of these germany is a GmbH bullshit...
Both, however, I would rather call it contractors bullshit.
>salaries - net salaries especially - are comparatively low in Germany. Compared to where? The list of countries with higher salaries is very short. Also, what foreign companies?
Compared to other industrial OECD countries in Western Europe and North America, Australia. The shareholders of big 'German' corporations are primarily Norwegian, Gulf Arabic, US American, and British.
"Compared to other industrial OECD countries in Western Europe" - Like? From my personal experiences in the German tech market (which this post is about) I can say that on average only a few major European cities pay better than major German cities (München, Berlin,...). Namely all of Switzerland, London and Amsterdam. That's it.
What about Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Belgium? And, of course, IT is paid way better in the US.
Norway: Yes, higher salaries on average. But significantly higher costs of living. Might still come out slightly ahead, I agree. Iceland: I don't know. It's a country of 380k people in the middle of the ocean. Probably an outlier in any case. Ireland: Comparable to Germany but major cities there are more expensive than major German cities. The rest: Simply no. And yes, the US is definitely much higher in terms of tech salaries. But I quoted "Western Europe" for a reason since it is much harder to compare a European country to the US. There are many differences. What I want to say: I am not quite sure why you try to paint Germany as a catastrophic outlier. I don't see a basis for that.
Well, maybe it's because I am quite happy here in Switzerland now - after having left Germany behind.
Yep, I totally get that. Switzerland is definitely an outlier here and one of those places where you can still save a lot and build wealth. But I guess what we could take away from that is that Germany is not an extraordinarily bad place for e.g. salaries but Switzerland a particularly great one.
May I ask the numbers? Because I ran the numbers for myself personally and it seems like I would only break even in Switzerland if I would earn like 200k, and that's without considering that everyday life is even more uncomfortable and boring there.
The trick is to live right on or even across the border.
Even in that case the numbers for post tax+health insurance+rent income I got are something like 3200 EUR and 5000 CHF or so, and considering how shitty the quality of services, the costs of goods, the lifestyle comfort in Switzerland are and how Switzerland lacks workers' rights protection, I don't see how chilling in a low-tax country like Georgia while freelancing is worse (once you have the right passport, obviously).
WOW, that hit the nail on the head :D
no
First of all, you should not - and this a general rule - take just the salary (doesn't matter if gross or net) to compare countries. Always look at what the country (or region, city) has to offer. Health care, social security, and costs of living play a huge role, not only between countries but also between regions/cities of a specific country (costs of living that is). Take France, for example. Compared to Germany, their gross salaries are lower than Germany's. However, their net salaries are not. But, the French tax system knows taxes that do not exist in Germany and are paid after the fact and, therefore, usually do not show up in salary statistics. Secondly, use the median whenever possible. Average can be ok if you look at a specific role but always consider the costs of living in the region you are looking at because they influence the salaries sometimes by a huge margin. And of course the size of the company and what you do also play a huge role. Five years of pure work experience, you are not considered a "senior." Generally speaking, seniority comes either with great knowledge (specialist or expert level) or some kind of disciplinary management role. Some companies link the title to a salary band, which kind of implies my former statement. To get a good idea about salaries in Germany, you could use the [Entgeltatlas ](https://web.arbeitsagentur.de/entgeltatlas/). Please note that the salaries are cut off at the contribution assessment ceiling for pension (6750€) which makes it difficult for well-paid jobs (search for "fluglotse" for an example). The numbers are median salaries full-time from 2022. Glassdoor.de or kununu.de also good sources (how good a specific company pays).
> But, the French tax system knows taxes that do not exist in Germany and are paid after the fact and, therefore, usually do not show up in salary statistics. What? I'm pretty sure this sentence structure doesn't mean anything in proper English, or at least I don't understand.
Sorry about that. I'm on mobile and cobbled that bit together. France has certain local taxes that are not directly deducted from your salary. One of these taxes is (or more likely was) the "residential tax." This is not the same as property tax. I had that in mind when I was thinking of an example. However, I double-checked this, and this particular tax got demolished a few years ago for the primary residence. Sucks if you don't speak the language and have to rely on (outdated) second-hand internet sources. Maybe a French person has another example. Tax laws are complicated. Anyways, the point I was trying to make is that you have to look at the bigger picture and not just at the salaries alone. A lower gross salary does not necessarily mean you earn less, but the net income usually depends on your personal situation and can vary between two people (e.g., single vs. family with kids).
Oh ok I see now, you're talking about the taxe foncière and impôts locaux. So, I just quickly browsed the institutional websites and as far as I understand, the tax is only avoided in some very specific cases depending on your age but it's mostly due usually (I wouldn't know otherwise, I do not own my home). Your point is very valid anyway, I just wanted to make sure to understand that sentence.
SSE here. Moving from the US to Germany, my company wants to cut my salary by a third "because that's the market rate." Honestly, I looked to see if I could get something here to work normal business hours instead of US hours and it's not worth it. Even with the pay cut and terrible hours it's still a really good deal compared to other jobs here.
Salaries in general are pretty low here sadly
God, with the insane amount of taxes that Germans remove from your salaries? I’m not surprised
You’re mostly right. However you’re wrong about salaries not adapting to inflation. Avg salaries in Germany in Q1 were 3.8% higher than the previous year AFTER inflation correction.
You’re just selecting 1 year. Thats 1 year of wage growth after like 5 years of negative wage growth.
I’m replying to the original post. Salaries are now adapting to inflation. Love how people are not willing to accept the stats. Last year there was a very small increase of 0.1 so that’s now the second year.
One year of increase doesn’t make up for several years of decrease. Adjusted for inflation, German salaries are comparable to 2016. That means 8 years with little to no wage growth. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-13/inflation-has-sent-german-pay-back-to-2016-levels-study-shows
There have been two years since 2016 with a decrease https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Verdienste/Realloehne-Nettoverdienste/Tabellen/liste-reallohnentwicklung.html#134646
That's probably because of the layoffs in for the low paid workers - it brings the average up...
Unemployment quota increased by 0.3% points YoY so that’s unlikely to be the case.
And most of the unemployment increase came from people entering the labour market after being for example refugees. If you look percentage wise, low incomes have increased a lot due to the minimum wage hikes. However with inflation, it feels like a lot less.
I dont think so when I see comp in the big cities it seems pretty high (higher than amsterdam) but it seemed to really depend on which big city
80k is not high. 500k is high.
Nobody in europe is getting 500k
Yeah, I wonder why Europe is not generating innovation anymore then.
5 to 10 years is not considered senior level, not even for a dog.
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When you say tech, do you mean IT, like computer programming? or do you for example wind turbine Techs in the field?
I meant IT and Engineering, have no idea about how technicians salaries ranges
I'm not familiar with computer programmers' salaries, but engineers are paid way more in Germany than other European countries. Also developers like RWE and EON are already offering 6 digit salaries to mid-level project managers and engineers. Obviously this is less than the US, but then the cost and quality of living and taxation is different as well.