9 ms·
Bullshit alert They start with: "Maybe it is because of the outrageous rents eating over 30% of the salary and houses you cannot afford unless you joined Facebo
by greatgib 7y ago
Bullshit alert
They start with:
"Maybe it is because of the outrageous rents eating over 30% of the salary and houses you cannot afford unless you joined Facebook or Google at the right time? "
Regarding the SV.
Then, this is what they (proudly) say about Switzerland:
1) "In Zurich, you can rent a whole flat (50+ square meters) for something between 2500-4000 CHF "
2) "In Switzerland a Software Developer can easily earn over 100,000 CHF (1 CHF is around 1 USD) "
So, that means that we can calculate your rent there to be between 30% to 48%.
But I guess, just because it is in Switzerland, it should not be outrageous?
- config_yml 7y ago10 years ago, the rule was rent should not be more than 1/4 of your gross salary. The rule just gets adjusted, we're currently at 1/3. Same thing goes down with health care costs. People are squeezed for it, because they have no choice. Meanwhile wages are stagnating and can't keep up with the rising cost of living.
- throwaway_law 7y agoYep, so now the US government is providing the following helpful formula 33% of salary goes to taxes; 33% to housing and 33% to student loans. You better be good at budget because everything else must be covered by that 1%
- CountSessine 7y agoWhy should wages go up to match outrageous expenses? People are being squeezed, but your pay is roughly correlated with the value of your labour. I hear this all the time in Vancouver - people blaming this squeeze on stagnant wages - as if the labour market could ever pay people enough to keep pace with supply-constrained, monopolistic markets. The rent is too damn high. And we know why, but ... somehow we just want to throw more money in the fire? You can pay people however much you want, but without addressing the market dysfunctions all of those higher wages will wind up in the hands of landlords and health insurance companies.
- kornakiewicz 7y ago> but your pay is roughly correlated with the value of your labour. It is not. The value fire-fighters, teachers or nurses provide is much higher than, say, an enterprise developer, yet in most places the other earns more.
- sjg007 7y agoFirefighters can make bank.. overtime and all that. Teachers are underpaid and nurses are probably too but they too can do well working overtime etc...
- monocasa 7y agoFirefighters and teachers are normally overtime exempt salary. And it's not really fair to nurses to say "you only get a fair wage if you're putting in 60-80 hours". It's also not fair to their patients, as care quality drops pretty hard when you over work nurses and doctors.
- Jiig 7y agoThere is something seriously wrong the with the idea that its ok to underpay these very important jobs because they can eek out a living wage by working every hour of their waking life, sacrificing mental and physical health to do so.
- Fernicia 7y agoIt's marginal utility, not labour value or labour usefulness that determines wage price. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value
- iamasoftwaredev 7y ago10 years ago it was absolutely 1/3.
- izacus 7y agoNote that this rent buys you less than 20 minute of commute every day and life near nature while still being able to reach a modern city center in short order.
- jackfoxy 7y agoJust about everywhere in the S.F. Bay Area (a.k.a. Silicon Valley) is near big expanses of undeveloped nature and parks. Commute times are frequently more on the scale of 1 hour.
- amyjess 7y agoPersonally, I'd rather avoid both SV and CH and just live in Texas. $1/sq. ft. ($10.76/m²) is still the norm in Dallas, and it's not too hard to find cheaper. You would pay less money for a decent-size house in the suburbs of Dallas than the cheapest 1-bedroom apartment in SV or Zurich.
- adventured 7y agoAustin is also still amazingly well priced compared to the salaries you can pull there, especially against SF or Zurich.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y agoSame. I'll stay in Texas with my $75k 3-bedroom house and no state taxes.
- iamasoftwaredev 7y agoI don't think I could stand Texas. I don't like heat and I hate having to deal with commuting. Also I abhor the politics of the state and region, in general.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dmode 7y agoAre you seriously considering an extremely boring and bland US metropolis to living in country that is the middle of Alps ?
- mpeg 7y agoThey also have a chart of "How Switzerland tax measures up internationally" which lists the corp tax rates for each country, which have nothing to do with personal income tax.
- KPLauritzen 7y agoEdit: I was wrong. I'm comparing monthly cost and yearly income. I think your math is wrong. 4,000 CHF / 100,000 CHF = 4%
- oblio 7y agoI'm pretty sure the 4000 CHF is monthly :)
- KPLauritzen 7y agoOops. My bad.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pbh101 7y ago4000 * 12 months = 48000 CHF
- ike0790 7y agoI'm gonna go on a limb and say the 2500-4000 CHF was per month which would be 30,000-48,000 per year :)
- HorkHunter 7y agoI'm in Vienna and its pretty normal here to rent for 40-50% of your salary. otherwise you'd move to the far outskirts of the city.
- tasuki 7y agoAh yes, this is exactly why I'm not in Vienna. Software developers are curiously underpaid in Austria. I got offered a better salary even in Brno (Brünn), which is a much cheaper place. A pity, Vienna is a beautiful city and consistently ranks among the best places to live.
- HorkHunter 7y agoI mean its pretty strange in Austria, In smaller cities "Graz, Linz" where rent could be as low as 50% lower than Vienna, you'd get pretty much the same salary.
- ChuckNorris89 7y agoDepends on your field. You can make insane money as an overpriced contractor in Vienna financial sector that you'd never dream about in Graz.
- timerol 7y agoI often hear about how Vienna is a public housing paradise. (ie, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vienna-affordable-housing-paradise_n_5b4e0b12e4b0b15aba88c7b0 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vienna-affordable-housing-par..., https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl...) Is it the market-rate units that cost 40-50% of your salary?
- gallexme 7y agoHere in Germany it's also like 50-60+% of income for housing (1 room apartment) if u start out as dev
- 7y ago
- asdfman123 7y agoAlso, a lot of the "pros" of living in Switzerland are basically the same as in the US. In any other low-key metropolis (Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Austin, Phoenix, Des Moines, whatever) a software developer with 5 years of experience can earn $130k and buy houses for $250k - $350k. If you're single, you can get luxury 1 BD apartments for $1500 in happening parts of town. Plus, in the enterprise world it's very easy to find 40/hr wk (or in practice, sometimes less!) jobs. Not all of them have the natural beauty of Switzerland, but if you want that, you can find that too. My next move might be working for Amazon in Nashville after I put in a few good years at my current gig. That seems like it could be a nice place to live.
- saiya-jin 7y agoYou obviously never lived in Switzerland. Can't explain all the US-CH differences in few words, but some benefits: better healthcare, better social system, much much safer, actually working public school system, great clean nature on your doorstep, I can be in 2 minutes of drive in beautiful France and 1 hour drive in Italy and rest of Europe is just around the corner. Very health and sport-oriented mentality. Super strong middle class which creates much healthier long term society. Much better (and healthier!) food, population that has most voting power in the world and actually votes sanely. You can have all the guns you can have in US too :) And so on and on and on... Oh, and your tax dollars don't support wars making the world a significantly worse place with all the rest of evil attached, if you care about such things.
- iamasoftwaredev 7y ago> Oh, and your tax dollars don't support wars making the world a significantly worse place with all the rest of evil attached, if you care about such things. I do, but unfortunately for Switzerland I also care about stopping Nazis. > population that has most voting power in the world and since the 70s even women can vote! I'm obviously just messing with you, but I do have a point and that is that as an outsider the Swiss political system just seems messed up in different ways.
- asdfman123 7y ago
- xz0r 7y ago> that means that we can calculate your rent there to be between 30% to 48%. But I guess, just because it is in Switzerland, it should not be outrageous? The article assumes that you would share the flat with others. Sharing with 2 others would mean effective rent is 800-1300 CHF.
- qaq 7y ago3 people in 50m flat doesn't sound amazing.
- Double_a_92 7y agoAlso you don't necessarily have to live in Zürich city... Outside the city or in other parts of Switzerland you can find a decent flat for ~1500 CHF.
- blunte 7y agoPeople don't realize that a commute in Switzerland is not a terrible or necessarily lengthy event, so living outside the city center is a reasonable choice. A commute in California or New York or London can be a real drag.
- glup 7y ago...with the cleanest, most on-time, and pleasant public transit you can imagine
- iamasoftwaredev 7y agoSo move to Switzerland and have a lower quality of life?
- balfirevic 7y ago> In Zurich, you can rent a whole flat (50+ square meters) for something between 2500-4000 CHF > In Switzerland a Software Developer can easily earn over 100,000 CHF (1 CHF is around 1 USD) So... A little bit cheaper apartment combined with a salary that is half or third (from what I read, I don't live there) of what you can get in Bay Area. WTF is this article trying to say? Edit: And of course, not to even mention that living in $8000 apartment on $200 000 salary is much better than living in $4000 apartment on $100 000 salary.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rmah 7y ago50 sq m is 500 sq ft, which is considered very small in most of the US and on the small end even in NYC. It's just slightly larger than a mobile home.
- balfirevic 7y agoThat's interesting. It is considered a very decent size for a single person or even a couple where I live (Croatia). But then again, I grew up in a family of five in a 45 square meter apartment.
- kotojo 7y agoLooking at places around me (Atlanta, Ga, USA), the second I filter down to < 750 sqft for any 1 bedroom apartment or condo on redfin.com I am left with about 5% of the search results. The average size seems to be about 900 sqft. Before buying a house most places I rented were also around that size, and my house 2200 sqft (204 sq m) with 3 bedrooms.
- GFischer 7y agoIt's decent here in Uruguay (South America) too.
- walterstucco 7y agoIn Switzerland Healthcare is free. BTW Zurich is expensive, of course it is, it's one of the most expensive cities in the world, but it's also very small, you can live in the metropolitan area surrounding it and spend a lot less. You could live in Zug or in beatifull St. Gallen and still be 100% in Switzerland, with all the benefits of living there. In the valley there are no rules, in Switzerland tech workers are not gentrifying the land, families (especially with kids), single moms and other categories are protected so you can't push them out with money, they will have precedence when renting a house. And everything is very close in Switzerland. Everything includes (in alphabetical order) Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein.
- cactus2093 7y agoYeah this article is interesting. Cost of housing is basically being described as as high as the Bay Area, but the salaries sound quite a bit lower. Junior devs in SF are making maybe $110-130k, vs 60-90 that the article claims in switzerland. Senior devs are making maybe $180-220k, plus more in stock options/RSUs (which despite the negative reaction to them here on HN, actually do often turn into real money at least at unicorns or public companies) vs $120k+ mentioned in the article. More generally I've been wondering about this and can't figure it out, why are software engineer salaries in Europe are so much lower than the US? From what I can tell, Switzerland is just about the highest you'll see in Europe, and is still lower than the biggest US tech hubs. In other big metropolitan areas (Paris, London, etc.), the cost of living is at least a bit lower, but they're still major cities and not that cheap. And there salaries for engineers are even lower. As another concrete data point I was looking through the gitlab location adjustments for remote workers that they have released publicly[0], and the floor for anywhere in the US, meaning even the most inexpensive, remote parts in the country, is 63.3% of the baseline SF salary. Any mid-tier city will be higher than that, like 75% of the SF salaries. But Paris only pays 56.5% of the SF baseline. Why is that? [0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/master/data/location_factors.yml https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/master/dat...
- balabaster 7y agoI can't speak for GitLab specifically, nor for the whole of Europe. I'm from the UK and living in Toronto (which seems vaguely comparable to SV in terms of income/cost of living). I generally keep a pretty close eye on the UK market and I can tell you that salaries for a senior developer job in the UK will compare, when accounting for the cost of living, to about a 75% pay cut against what I earn now. That's not to say there aren't outliers in the UK where you could earn a comparable standard of living. I'm taking the median/high income range for a senior developer in both places.
- Nursie 7y agoDon't look at salaries, look at day rates. UK salaries are a joke, but you can make good money contracting and consulting.
- wannabedev2 7y agoI can chime in here, as I am very familiar with Zurich. While there are no extreme high compensations like for the top echelon SD in the SV top companies, the median, truly achievable wage is easy in excess of 120k annually. The housing prices are much lower than around SV, and most importantly, you do not have to live in the city, the public transport system network is very efficient, it is not essential to own a car. Those are the good parts, however, not all things are good. Everything else is very expensive. Going out to an average restaurant will cost 100 CHF for a dinner for 2. There was a study saying a household with one kid will require 8k CHF a month if you plan to have a holiday and a car. You will have to pay for mandatory insurance etc. Then again, 8k is not that much if both partners work. Do not forget that the tax rate is very attractive and often there is a so called 13th salary at the end of the year, usually a full month salary. This is not based on KPI's this has been a tradition for a long time. Also, 5 weeks of paid holidays, the US do not know that concept yet. If you add these two to your salary, the numbers suddenly look much better. In summary, you can have a very good life and put money aside in Zurich if you commute to work by public transport(or small scooter), do not live in the most expensive apartment you can find and so long you do not eat out twice every day, you will be very well off. Zurich is one of the most beautiful and entertaining cities in the world. The weather is horrible compared to California, but you'll have plenty of money and paid time off work to holiday in sunny and warm destinations. The nearest being southern Switzerland, once you're through the alps, you are in a different climate zone. A 2 hours commute. And let's not forget the social system. If you earn 10k CHF a month and lose your employment, you are entitled to collect something like 7k gross a month for 1.5 years while looking for the next job. I hope this gives some perspective, that said, with such a salary, if it's possible to work remotely, I'd chose neither SV nor Zurich.
- alteria 7y agoIt seems like based on what you said that Switzerland may offer wages that are closer to US pay scales while still offering "European" benefits like PTO/healthcare/safety net?
- mtnGoat 7y agoI am from the US but lived and worked in both Austria and Switzerland for years. There are a lot of contrasts between Europe and SV, the social benefits certainly help offset the extremely high wages of SV. Quality of life is certainly much better in Vienna and Zurich than SF/SV, but the opportunities in certain fields are limited. that said... if i could get a job paying 80% of what i make now, in either city. i would move back and take it in a heartbeat, considering it was something remotely interesting.
- sawmurai 7y agoJust to add a few data points: in my area it’s normal to pay less than 3k CHF for more than 100sq. m. (Buildings are 3 years old). 10 minutes to the city center of Zurich. Unless you want to live exactly in the center of Zurich, I have never seen such expensive apartments as mentioned in the article.