7 ms·

French employees are generelle low paid in cash. however, a big part of the compensation is through labor protection - something that is not worth a lot to a so

French employees are generelle low paid in cash. however, a big part of the compensation is through labor protection - something that is not worth a lot to a software developer. currently, France had a serious issue with brain drain. software developers move to Germany or the UK to get higher salaries. This gives a situation where all advanced jobs move out while simpler job stay back with really expensive labor protections. IMHO, France need to assimilate more with the countries they live among, or other countries need to adopt better labor protection systems - this is solely a comparative thing. as an employee myself, I would hope for the latter.

silisili 3y ago
How are social protections for say, losing a job, health emergencies, and retirement? 90% of my drive for more and more money is the fear of long term unemployment and knowing there's nobody to come save me. If that fear didn't exist, I'd probably work for half the price to be honest.
- Irishsteve 3y ago
  Then move to France or Scandinavia. I'd suggest Norway since they have a huge oil reserve so the country can sustain its current population.
  - olavgg 3y ago
    But if you build a successful startup, you have to give up your ownership as having wealth/assets gets heavily taxed. If your startup have a bad financial year, its really frustrating to be forced to take a 2% dividend of your networth, tax 40% of that amount as dividend tax and then pay the remaining 1.1% as wealth tax. That is why everyone with some wealth is now moving to Switzerland.
    - adamlarsson78 3y ago
      It may be frustrating, but that's the flipside of wealth inequality being much lower in Scandinavia and thereby society being more equal. Which makes it much more pleasant to live in, even for relatively rich people. (Disclosure: I'm one of those relatively rich people in Scandinavia and I pay lots of taxes but I also enjoy that wealth inequality isn't so extreme over here.)
      - yobbo 3y ago
        You're thinking of income inequality.
        madsbuch 3y ago
        wealth tax would apply to wealth inequality. I don't know for Norway, but Denmark is one of the most wealth inequal countries in the world, while also being one of the most income equal.
        adamlarsson78 3y ago
        These two are highly correlated. My background is lower middle class, but high income for a few years made me into high wealth. With lower income tax, that would have been even more extreme. But with the high income tax I'm paying, lots of benefits go to low income families and make it less likely that their kids end up poor when they will be adults. A proper taxation of inheritance would make income and wealth even stronger correlated, but that's hard to do as long as you can take your extreme wealth abroad. Family dynasties do exist even here and it's still an issue society needs to solve.
- xavxav 3y ago
  > health emergencies We have socialized health care, and even private care is like 1% the cost of american healthcare. I got elective surgery without insurance which included full anethesia in a private clinic and they were very sorry because the total would be 600 euros. > retirement Public retirement is ~50% of your average lifetime salary though the age was recently raised from 62 to 64 (in the face of massive protests). > losing a job Firing is harder to do in the first case, they have to have cause, or the company has to be facing bankruptcy, there's a long notice period. Unemployment is also a decent percentage of your salary and can go on for months. Frankly on 60k a year, you live well even in a city like Paris, you're not living a life of luxury but that's comfortable upper middle class levels (in Paris).
  - realusername 3y ago
    > We have socialized health care, and even private care is like 1% the cost of american healthcare. I got elective surgery without insurance which included full anethesia in a private clinic and they were very sorry because the total would be 600 euros. Socialized healthcare is pretty much a given in other similar countries in the EU though, it's the US which is an outlier.
    - nip 3y ago
      Most French people believe they still live in the France of the 1990s: a country of abundance with excellent ROI for the amount of taxes paid. But as you pointed out, other european countries have since caught up and provide the same benefits.
  - ponector 3y ago
    60k per year is around 3200€ per month after taxes. It could be comfortable upper class level life only if you own the place you live and have a small family without special needs. If you rent and have few children - you screwed.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      > It could be comfortable upper class level life I think we might have a different understanding of what "upper class" means. Upper class is the likes of Trump/Bezos/Musk/. 3200 Euros/month will not let you live even remotely near that. It's a decent middle class and that's it.
- krater23 3y ago
  The you are no software developer. As a software developer you have no fear of unemployment.
- madsbuch 3y ago
  As in most other European countries social security, health and retirement is provided on a subsistence level. I think this is what differs from EU to the US. EU is great for subsistence seekers while the US is much better for aspirational people. The issue is just that you need both to have a good country. An aspirational person also need to be able to shop, eat, etc. And subsistence people also want access to the newest comforts such as being able to access newest medical treatments. As an aspirational person myself, I tend to be negative around the subsistence arguments thinking people need a notch to work. Just like subsistence people tend to take for granted the amount of effort is takes to safely make accessible a new treatment and feel entitlement around social security, health, and retirement services.
  - adamlarsson78 3y ago
    > EU is great for subsistence seekers The fraction of people in EU countries who just want to exist on social welfare and have no aspirations is miniscule. That's just propaganda and a narrative spun by the rich to avoid paying taxes as much as possible. Not backed by any data.
    - crollywood 3y ago
      If I'm not mistaken, your statement is also not backed by any data and is a propaganda in itself
      - adamlarsson78 3y ago
        Sure, as long as we can agree that the original statement is, that's fine by me.
        madsbuch 3y ago
        You completely misrepresent me in your comments and you have really bad attitude. > The fraction of people in EU countries who just want to exist on social welfare and have no aspirations is miniscule. You insinuate that I was talking about people living of welfare which is absolutely not within the "subsistence" definition. That would be more akin to a rent-seeker. Also, I did not make any political statement. I merely setup a taxonomy: That of subsistence people vs. aspirational people and proposed that EU is better suited for subsistence people while the US is better suited for aspiration people. That is not at all controversial.
realusername 3y ago
> French employees are generelle low paid in cash. however, a big part of the compensation is through labor protection - something that is not worth a lot to a software developer. If the public services were much better than everywhere else the high taxation system might hold up but they clearly aren't, I would not put France in the European top 10 at this metric. France need either to make people feel they are actually paying for something or reduce the taxation level.
fdgjgbdfhgb 3y ago
> however, a big part of the compensation is through labor protection - something that is not worth a lot to a software developer Maybe that was true in previous years, but I have found it very comforting to know that I'm almost unfirable (specially compared to my US peers), and even if I do get laid off I still have a ~12 month runway provided by the government.
eloisant 3y ago
The problem of software developers in France is not that French salaries are lower than other countries overall, but software development salaries in France compared to other professions. In North America and Northern Europe countries software development is a high paying job, in France not as much. But things are changing. Yes a lot of software dev jobs are crap (typically IT Services companies) but you also have Big Tech and other high paying tech companies in France. While it's still a bit less than other countries, as a senior you can easily get a TC above 130k euros even as an individual contributor.
- madsbuch 3y ago
  it would seems that striking is detrimental to the goal of attracting more Big Tech? it makes sense that a lot. of people are hired by It service companies, as these are not easily moved out. usually it is easier to get talent to move to another country, than to setup a subsidiary.

silisili 3y ago

How are social protections for say, losing a job, health emergencies, and retirement? 90% of my drive for more and more money is the fear of long term unemployment and knowing there's nobody to come save me. If that fear didn't exist, I'd probably work for half the price to be honest.

Irishsteve 3y ago
Then move to France or Scandinavia. I'd suggest Norway since they have a huge oil reserve so the country can sustain its current population.
- olavgg 3y ago
  But if you build a successful startup, you have to give up your ownership as having wealth/assets gets heavily taxed. If your startup have a bad financial year, its really frustrating to be forced to take a 2% dividend of your networth, tax 40% of that amount as dividend tax and then pay the remaining 1.1% as wealth tax. That is why everyone with some wealth is now moving to Switzerland.
  - adamlarsson78 3y ago
    It may be frustrating, but that's the flipside of wealth inequality being much lower in Scandinavia and thereby society being more equal. Which makes it much more pleasant to live in, even for relatively rich people. (Disclosure: I'm one of those relatively rich people in Scandinavia and I pay lots of taxes but I also enjoy that wealth inequality isn't so extreme over here.)
    - yobbo 3y ago
      You're thinking of income inequality.
      - madsbuch 3y ago
        wealth tax would apply to wealth inequality. I don't know for Norway, but Denmark is one of the most wealth inequal countries in the world, while also being one of the most income equal.
      - adamlarsson78 3y ago
        These two are highly correlated. My background is lower middle class, but high income for a few years made me into high wealth. With lower income tax, that would have been even more extreme. But with the high income tax I'm paying, lots of benefits go to low income families and make it less likely that their kids end up poor when they will be adults. A proper taxation of inheritance would make income and wealth even stronger correlated, but that's hard to do as long as you can take your extreme wealth abroad. Family dynasties do exist even here and it's still an issue society needs to solve.
xavxav 3y ago
> health emergencies We have socialized health care, and even private care is like 1% the cost of american healthcare. I got elective surgery without insurance which included full anethesia in a private clinic and they were very sorry because the total would be 600 euros. > retirement Public retirement is ~50% of your average lifetime salary though the age was recently raised from 62 to 64 (in the face of massive protests). > losing a job Firing is harder to do in the first case, they have to have cause, or the company has to be facing bankruptcy, there's a long notice period. Unemployment is also a decent percentage of your salary and can go on for months. Frankly on 60k a year, you live well even in a city like Paris, you're not living a life of luxury but that's comfortable upper middle class levels (in Paris).
- realusername 3y ago
  > We have socialized health care, and even private care is like 1% the cost of american healthcare. I got elective surgery without insurance which included full anethesia in a private clinic and they were very sorry because the total would be 600 euros. Socialized healthcare is pretty much a given in other similar countries in the EU though, it's the US which is an outlier.
  - nip 3y ago
    Most French people believe they still live in the France of the 1990s: a country of abundance with excellent ROI for the amount of taxes paid. But as you pointed out, other european countries have since caught up and provide the same benefits.
- ponector 3y ago
  60k per year is around 3200€ per month after taxes. It could be comfortable upper class level life only if you own the place you live and have a small family without special needs. If you rent and have few children - you screwed.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    > It could be comfortable upper class level life I think we might have a different understanding of what "upper class" means. Upper class is the likes of Trump/Bezos/Musk/. 3200 Euros/month will not let you live even remotely near that. It's a decent middle class and that's it.
krater23 3y ago
The you are no software developer. As a software developer you have no fear of unemployment.
madsbuch 3y ago
As in most other European countries social security, health and retirement is provided on a subsistence level. I think this is what differs from EU to the US. EU is great for subsistence seekers while the US is much better for aspirational people. The issue is just that you need both to have a good country. An aspirational person also need to be able to shop, eat, etc. And subsistence people also want access to the newest comforts such as being able to access newest medical treatments. As an aspirational person myself, I tend to be negative around the subsistence arguments thinking people need a notch to work. Just like subsistence people tend to take for granted the amount of effort is takes to safely make accessible a new treatment and feel entitlement around social security, health, and retirement services.
- adamlarsson78 3y ago
  > EU is great for subsistence seekers The fraction of people in EU countries who just want to exist on social welfare and have no aspirations is miniscule. That's just propaganda and a narrative spun by the rich to avoid paying taxes as much as possible. Not backed by any data.
  - crollywood 3y ago
    If I'm not mistaken, your statement is also not backed by any data and is a propaganda in itself
    - adamlarsson78 3y ago
      Sure, as long as we can agree that the original statement is, that's fine by me.
      - madsbuch 3y ago
        You completely misrepresent me in your comments and you have really bad attitude. > The fraction of people in EU countries who just want to exist on social welfare and have no aspirations is miniscule. You insinuate that I was talking about people living of welfare which is absolutely not within the "subsistence" definition. That would be more akin to a rent-seeker. Also, I did not make any political statement. I merely setup a taxonomy: That of subsistence people vs. aspirational people and proposed that EU is better suited for subsistence people while the US is better suited for aspiration people. That is not at all controversial.

realusername 3y ago

> French employees are generelle low paid in cash. however, a big part of the compensation is through labor protection - something that is not worth a lot to a software developer. If the public services were much better than everywhere else the high taxation system might hold up but they clearly aren't, I would not put France in the European top 10 at this metric. France need either to make people feel they are actually paying for something or reduce the taxation level.

fdgjgbdfhgb 3y ago

> however, a big part of the compensation is through labor protection - something that is not worth a lot to a software developer Maybe that was true in previous years, but I have found it very comforting to know that I'm almost unfirable (specially compared to my US peers), and even if I do get laid off I still have a ~12 month runway provided by the government.

eloisant 3y ago

The problem of software developers in France is not that French salaries are lower than other countries overall, but software development salaries in France compared to other professions. In North America and Northern Europe countries software development is a high paying job, in France not as much. But things are changing. Yes a lot of software dev jobs are crap (typically IT Services companies) but you also have Big Tech and other high paying tech companies in France. While it's still a bit less than other countries, as a senior you can easily get a TC above 130k euros even as an individual contributor.

madsbuch 3y ago
it would seems that striking is detrimental to the goal of attracting more Big Tech? it makes sense that a lot. of people are hired by It service companies, as these are not easily moved out. usually it is easier to get talent to move to another country, than to setup a subsidiary.