5 ms·

> with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny What about the European system prevents that for the employee?

hutzlibu 3y ago
That we don't have hire and fire, meaning when you take a new job it comes with all kinds of regulations for the company - making them not wanting to change people so often. Otherwise we surely can do this in europe as well, just with a little bit more friction.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  So it in theory adds more opportunities for the worker, assuming they are in high demand. Of course, if a European leaves their company they don't lose their health coverage.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    It also creates demand even for low-skilled work, since there are more low-margin / seasonal businesses that are feasible under the easy-come-easy-go system.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>What about the European system prevents that for the employee? From personal experience: 1. Less employment opportunities due to no VC funding, and risk averse mentality of entrepreneurs meaning next to no big EU SW product companies. That's why the best paying jobs in EU tech scene are mostly US companies, which also tend to be clustered in only a few cities in the EU, where housing is now a major issue. 2. Employment and tax laws. 100% cross-country employment across the EU is still not a thing, as every government wants taxes be paid in their country, so they have the laws and bureaucracy in place to make sure jobs and tax revenue don't leave their country, so living in a country while being employed in another is incredibly rare as an employee and not a B-2-B contractor. 3. The big one: Language barriers and bureaucracy differing from country to country means huge friction and risk when moving to a country you're not familiar with, along with the added overhead of learning a new language on top of having a full time job plus the challenge of building new social circles with a different language and culture. I've seen many people leave a country due to the culture shock, language barrier and isolation that lead to, despite them being friendly people and productive workers. This might even be a fun challenge to deal with when you're young and single, but when you have a spouse and maybe even a child, things get even more complicated fast when it comes to immigration, finding a house or a job, especially if your spouse doesn't work in tech or any other career where English is normalized at work, or even needs their credentials translated and locally equivalated by the authorities to be eligible for employment. I've met many expat couples where one works in tech and their non-tech spouse has been unemployed for months/years due to their education, skills and experience not being recognized in the new country. Some EU countries really love bureaucracy, credentials, and don't tolerate you not speaking the local language. A friend of mine got laid off as part of his company going bankrupt with his last two wages going unpaid. The bureaucracy, letter bombardment and appointments in dealing with the authorities to try to recoup those two months wages, all having to be done in German, a foreign language to him(and me), makes the experience completely exhausting and I can feel he just wants to give up on those unpaid wages. Imagine someone from Ohio having to learn a new language when moving to California and then another language when moving to New York. Not having to deal with bureaucracy in a foreign language for every state is a huge asset for the US and a weakness of the EU labor mobility. The fix could be easy, mandate English as a second language for bureaucracy in every EU country, but I can name a few countries (not the Northern ones) where I know they'd rather see the world burn than adopt English. It's one of the reason why the UK and Ireland are the top destinations for EU migration, at least that was the case for UK before Brexit. 4. Racism, xenofobia, discrimination and glass ceilings from the locals, when you come from the "wrong" country, have a "wrong" sounding name or the "wrong" skin color.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  All those seem fairly reasonable except for the last when comparing Europe and the United States. Though you're not describing general work with #1, you're describing dev work. Unless this whole discussion is only in reference to software devs, but I don't think it is.
- chinchilla2020 3y ago
  Never experienced #3 in Europe. Language barrier is a non-issue since most countries are fluent in English. #4 is definitely a bit of an issue. Europe is surprisingly regressive, even compared to the US. Lots of rude comments towards non-white coworkers.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Language barrier is a non-issue since most countries are fluent in English. Absolutely not treu. You probably didn't read the part in my comment where I explained my experiences where needing the local language was a must for dealing with the bureaucratic paperwork you can end up facing regularly. Maybe in northern Europe that might be true but it's definitely not my experience in Austria (and even in Denmark I have friend who met doctors' offices telling them they need to speak Danish). Language barrier is defiantly an issue here, especially outside the SW dev world. Plenty of government offices you have to interact with don't or don't want to speak English (mostly due to older grumpy staff). Plenty of police officers don't speak English (also the older staff). Plenty of doctors, nurses and specialists don't speak English. Plenty(most?) companies outside of SW require German knowledge. Plenty of landlords and building management companies or utility companies don't speak or don't want to speak English. The list can go on, especially if you mostly land with older staff members. The language barrier is real. Sure, sometimes you can get lucky and land a young contact person who speaks great English and will want to help you, but that's quite rare, most will tell you "nur Deutsch" and then you're shit out of luck as a lot of the issues need to be solved over the phone or in person instead of email where you can fire up deepl. I remember when a negligent driver hit me while cycling, the two police officers who came over spoke no English at all as they were a bit older. This happens quite often when you deal with older staff. Saying English is all you need to get by is a gross over-exaggeration and does not match the struggles me and my friends had here at all. Sure, you can order a beer and a pizza in English just fine, but any and all official bureaucracy needs to be done in the local language, not in English, often on the phone or in person, on paper and the spot, without the possibility to easily google translate the thing you're signing, like you can on web forms (and even the stuff google translate camera app spits out is a lot of the time confusing as hell). And believe me, there's a lot of paper work: contracts, insurance forms, complaints, registration forms, etc. Also, it's respectul to learn the local language to integrate, unless you want to make life difficult for yourself, and live in isolation in expat-only bubbles. Anyway, my point is, from personal experience, it's still a huge hassle, to move and live in countries where you don't speak the local language as not everything and everyone is always geared to swatch to English for your convenience.

hutzlibu 3y ago

That we don't have hire and fire, meaning when you take a new job it comes with all kinds of regulations for the company - making them not wanting to change people so often. Otherwise we surely can do this in europe as well, just with a little bit more friction.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
So it in theory adds more opportunities for the worker, assuming they are in high demand. Of course, if a European leaves their company they don't lose their health coverage.
- FredPret 3y ago
  It also creates demand even for low-skilled work, since there are more low-margin / seasonal businesses that are feasible under the easy-come-easy-go system.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>What about the European system prevents that for the employee? From personal experience: 1. Less employment opportunities due to no VC funding, and risk averse mentality of entrepreneurs meaning next to no big EU SW product companies. That's why the best paying jobs in EU tech scene are mostly US companies, which also tend to be clustered in only a few cities in the EU, where housing is now a major issue. 2. Employment and tax laws. 100% cross-country employment across the EU is still not a thing, as every government wants taxes be paid in their country, so they have the laws and bureaucracy in place to make sure jobs and tax revenue don't leave their country, so living in a country while being employed in another is incredibly rare as an employee and not a B-2-B contractor. 3. The big one: Language barriers and bureaucracy differing from country to country means huge friction and risk when moving to a country you're not familiar with, along with the added overhead of learning a new language on top of having a full time job plus the challenge of building new social circles with a different language and culture. I've seen many people leave a country due to the culture shock, language barrier and isolation that lead to, despite them being friendly people and productive workers. This might even be a fun challenge to deal with when you're young and single, but when you have a spouse and maybe even a child, things get even more complicated fast when it comes to immigration, finding a house or a job, especially if your spouse doesn't work in tech or any other career where English is normalized at work, or even needs their credentials translated and locally equivalated by the authorities to be eligible for employment. I've met many expat couples where one works in tech and their non-tech spouse has been unemployed for months/years due to their education, skills and experience not being recognized in the new country. Some EU countries really love bureaucracy, credentials, and don't tolerate you not speaking the local language. A friend of mine got laid off as part of his company going bankrupt with his last two wages going unpaid. The bureaucracy, letter bombardment and appointments in dealing with the authorities to try to recoup those two months wages, all having to be done in German, a foreign language to him(and me), makes the experience completely exhausting and I can feel he just wants to give up on those unpaid wages. Imagine someone from Ohio having to learn a new language when moving to California and then another language when moving to New York. Not having to deal with bureaucracy in a foreign language for every state is a huge asset for the US and a weakness of the EU labor mobility. The fix could be easy, mandate English as a second language for bureaucracy in every EU country, but I can name a few countries (not the Northern ones) where I know they'd rather see the world burn than adopt English. It's one of the reason why the UK and Ireland are the top destinations for EU migration, at least that was the case for UK before Brexit. 4. Racism, xenofobia, discrimination and glass ceilings from the locals, when you come from the "wrong" country, have a "wrong" sounding name or the "wrong" skin color.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
All those seem fairly reasonable except for the last when comparing Europe and the United States. Though you're not describing general work with #1, you're describing dev work. Unless this whole discussion is only in reference to software devs, but I don't think it is.
chinchilla2020 3y ago
Never experienced #3 in Europe. Language barrier is a non-issue since most countries are fluent in English. #4 is definitely a bit of an issue. Europe is surprisingly regressive, even compared to the US. Lots of rude comments towards non-white coworkers.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Language barrier is a non-issue since most countries are fluent in English. Absolutely not treu. You probably didn't read the part in my comment where I explained my experiences where needing the local language was a must for dealing with the bureaucratic paperwork you can end up facing regularly. Maybe in northern Europe that might be true but it's definitely not my experience in Austria (and even in Denmark I have friend who met doctors' offices telling them they need to speak Danish). Language barrier is defiantly an issue here, especially outside the SW dev world. Plenty of government offices you have to interact with don't or don't want to speak English (mostly due to older grumpy staff). Plenty of police officers don't speak English (also the older staff). Plenty of doctors, nurses and specialists don't speak English. Plenty(most?) companies outside of SW require German knowledge. Plenty of landlords and building management companies or utility companies don't speak or don't want to speak English. The list can go on, especially if you mostly land with older staff members. The language barrier is real. Sure, sometimes you can get lucky and land a young contact person who speaks great English and will want to help you, but that's quite rare, most will tell you "nur Deutsch" and then you're shit out of luck as a lot of the issues need to be solved over the phone or in person instead of email where you can fire up deepl. I remember when a negligent driver hit me while cycling, the two police officers who came over spoke no English at all as they were a bit older. This happens quite often when you deal with older staff. Saying English is all you need to get by is a gross over-exaggeration and does not match the struggles me and my friends had here at all. Sure, you can order a beer and a pizza in English just fine, but any and all official bureaucracy needs to be done in the local language, not in English, often on the phone or in person, on paper and the spot, without the possibility to easily google translate the thing you're signing, like you can on web forms (and even the stuff google translate camera app spits out is a lot of the time confusing as hell). And believe me, there's a lot of paper work: contracts, insurance forms, complaints, registration forms, etc. Also, it's respectul to learn the local language to integrate, unless you want to make life difficult for yourself, and live in isolation in expat-only bubbles. Anyway, my point is, from personal experience, it's still a huge hassle, to move and live in countries where you don't speak the local language as not everything and everyone is always geared to swatch to English for your convenience.