this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
650 points (97.9% liked)

Technology

63186 readers
4696 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Google layoffs: The company plans to set up a new team in Munich, Germany which would act as "cheaper" labour, the report claimed.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 51 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Compared to Valley workers, Germans are still cheap. 100k is a very very good salary over here.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 10 months ago

When you have a much better social safety net, work-life balance and in general can expect to be treated like a human and not a work-battery to be used up and discarded, people are satisfied with much less money.

Should they maybe instead just try that in the US? Nah, of course not.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, but you still have to pay social taxes on top for every worker. That's why salary and labour cost are two different things. And boy is it a difference in Germany.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And as far as I've been led to believe, workers in the USA will be bullied into not taking any time off. Germans will take their entitled holidays and use sick leave when they are sick.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Workers in the US may not even have sick time. They do make more money though, probably because lots of European tech workers come to the US for better pay.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Compared to Valley workers, Germans are still cheap.

So is West Virginia or Oklahoma.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

True, but you also need to get enough people with the right skills/knowledge who want to live in West Virginia or Oklahoma when those same skills and knowledge likely make them highly employable in markets with more amenities and greater job opportunities without needing to uproot their life and move to a new town/city when the time comes to get a job with a new company.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

If only there was a way to, like, have workers work on things without having to be anywhere near the office. Like distance workers or something, then you could hire people from all over the country in cheap places! Ah well, we need that face time though! ~Executives

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But salary does not equal labour cost.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Even doubling the salary is far less than what you'd pay in the US, and as a rule of thumb, German labour, including all the indirect costs, is about twice the gross salary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Even doubling the salary is far less than what you’d pay in the US,

I'm certain there's plenty of Python programmers available in the United States for less than $200,000 per year.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

These python programmers are literally maintainers of the language. They're not a dime a dozen. Not saying it's impossible or anything but you're looking to get very high caliber engineers for under 140k

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Take home or total cost?

For instance, is there a pension to be funded with costs not included in that 100k?