8 ms·

A 22 percent increase in the German minimum wage: nothing crazy

69 points by MPLan 2y ago

MPLan 2y ago
Bossler, Chittka and Schank found that after the second minimum wage increase (from EUR to 10.45 to EUR 12.00), average wages of the people who were earning less than EUR 12 went up by 6%. Moreover, there was no noticeable reduction in employment. There was however a slight reduction in hours worked – impacted individuals worked 1% fewer hours, meaning their overall monthly wages went up only by 5% on average. Thus, it appears that a significant minimum wage change had a net positive impact on workers with minimal downsides. (https://www.nominalnews.com/p/minimum-wages-employment-benefits https://www.nominalnews.com/p/minimum-wages-employment-benef...)
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  It does not seem like the study took into account inflation, though? If workers overall monthly wages went up 5%, was that offset by inflation in the price of things those workers buy?
  - selectodude 2y ago
    If you look at the graph, they did take into consideration real vs nominal. Unfortunately, the jump in minimum wage happened too recently to get a long enough timeline to see the effect over more than 1 year so the outcome is TBD but the early data seems positive.
    - wwweston 2y ago
      Additionally, it's pretty obvious that many products wouldn't see price increases proportional to wage increases. This is especially true the higher the production volume / economies of scale. Imagine a burger joint where a worker pushes out a measley dozen burgers in an hour (I'd be surprised if volumes for most places are this low, but let's imagine). So, 5 min per burger. At fed minimum wage of $7.25/hr, labor costs for those burgers are about 60 cents. A cheap burger is $2 right now, $3-$5 is much more typical. So even at output volumes as low as a dozen per hour, non-labor costs are a much greater portion of each of these burgers, like 70%-90%. Double that minimum wage to $15/hr and assume all the cost is passed onto consumers and the price of these dozen burgers goes up by 65 cents. OK, let's assume a complete separation of cooking and register/order duties that requires at least two workers per dozen burgers per hour. We might see an increase of $2 per burger. And since most people can't eat a dozen burgers an hour (much less the likely much higher output of burgers), a doubling of minimum wage far outpaces whatever price increase is passed on. This is a simple model but even if you get more complicated, the outcome isn't much different. Generally speaking, even at economies of scale as low as a dozen per hour, wage increases outpace necessary price increases. Where do wage increases contribute to dramatically increased costs? Lower volume high focus work where skilled labor is most of the cost of producing the product, but generally markets have long since decided these people get paid much more than minimum wage, so minimum wage increases have no effect here. There's also the case where each unit requires a large team of labor. This tends to be at least semi-skilled in construction / fabrication / manufacturing where labor demands have long since left a legal wage floor behind. The real question is why the misconception that minimum wage increases result in broad upward price spirals is so common when you can figure out why that's unlikely with math most people have learned by the time they're teenagers. (I do think there's a good argument that labor markets are so thoroughly regional that it's probably better to have legal wage floors be set at the state and county level, but there's no reason a federal law couldn't be indexed off of local indicators with local guidance.)
      - reshlo 2y ago
        > The real question is why the misconception that minimum wage increases result in broad upward price spirals is so common when you can figure out why that's unlikely with math most people have learned by the time they're teenagers. Owners of companies have an incentive to encourage us to think this, firstly because it’s a distraction from the true cause of inflation (their greed), and secondly because a public resistant to the idea of raising the minimum wage helps them keep their profits higher. > "Inflation begets inflation. When people are expecting price rises they're also more accepting of them," he says… > "Greedflation is the idea that corporate profit expansion is contributing to high inflation. This has moved from a fringe view to the mainstream in Europe and the US in the last year, and there's a debate going on about it in Australia,"… > When the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, last month told the National Press Club that "rising profits are not the source of inflation pressures we have", he was accused by The Australia Institute think tank of a dereliction of duty. A report from the institute earlier this year said that 69 percent of excess inflation – inflation above the Reserve Bank's 2.5 percent target – came from high corporate profit margins.[0] [0] https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018891366/greedflation-is-it-inflation-or-are-businesses-just-greedy https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018891366...
        doublepg23 2y ago
        even your own article offers a repudiation of this "greedflation" idea > But not everyone buys the greedflation argument. Professor of Economics at University of Waikato, Michael Cameron, calls himself a sceptic. > "I don't think that anybody who is promoting the idea of greedflation has given us a really good idea of what it is that they are referring to. Is it any time that someone's raising a price, that might be greedflation?" > Cameron says some of the factors behind New Zealand's high prices – a lack of competition in key industries such as grocery and building supplies – are not the same as other parts of the world.
- missedthecue 2y ago
  There's the legal minimum and then there's the prevailing market wage for low-skill work. That's somewhat unintuitive to measure, but I think it's really important for these studies. I'm not familiar with Germany, but in the US, federal minimum is $7.25, but almost no one earns that. I passed by a fast food place in a small town in very low cost Pennsylvania last week and the sign said $17/hr starting to serve fries. If the minimum wage was raised to $9.25, I assume there would be close to zero job losses and a minimal reduction in hours worked. $11, $14, probably the same. At $20, I'd expect to see problems. At $30, I think these problems would get catastrophic in terms of business closures and price increases. I don't see in the link that they modeled any of this, but without it, the study isn't super useful except as a talking point. At the end of the day, minimum wages are a price control, and price controls that impact and artificially shift the naturally occurring intersection point of supply and demand necessarily have consequences. Price controls on bread at $100 wouldn't cause problems. At $0.10 they would.
  - tzweicent26347 2y ago
    Those sorts of signs at fast food places are often just to get people to apply and they come back with something just a little over minimum after the interview.
lifeisstillgood 2y ago
Since CPI (inflation) has gone up 30%+ since 2018 this seems eminently reasonable- in fact Inwoukd think inflation linked salaries would work quite well (unless governments will buy into the MMT idea and actually tax the wealthy)
- hgomersall 2y ago
  Why do you think the MMT idea is to tax the wealthy? If anything, the MMT idea is that the wealthy are not special and that tax needs to be broad base to achieve its purpose of freeing resources to be purchased by the state. The problem with the wealthy is their marginal propensity to consume is low compared to the masses. One might want to tax the wealthy for other reasons, but I'm not sure it can be easily motivated by MMT reasoning.
  - lifeisstillgood 2y ago
    So my laypersons understanding is that a) Governments printed money massively to handle 2008/covid (on the order of tens trillions dollars) b) MMT says governments print money to spend it buying the services they want (ie roads, nurses, etc) then tax back the same amount thus having net no inflation and able to print the same amount again next cycle / year. c) if people can take the system so that they don’t pay tax but instead keep the money then governments cannot print same amount of money / end up causing inflation c) wealthiest in society are pulling away, tax rates for capital vs labour are not equal, the massive QE has ended up in hands of capital owners and as we don’t tax Wealth then each cycle of spend-tax means more is staying in private hands, it getting destroyed so more government spending must either be cut or raise inflation. So my limited understanding says “money is just tokens, tokens should equal productive capacity (multiplied by some thing something velocity), and if governments want to spend more tokens than are being destroyed through tax, either raise tax rates n those paying tax, or tax those not paying tax (ie tax wealthy) In the end it all comes back to rentierism- and that comes back to a land tax
    - hgomersall 2y ago
      You make some interesting points, but not MMT. It's actually quite an easy view to fall into which I also did for a bit based on a few, but nowhere near enough, snippets of MMT along with much prior baggage. The core point of MMT is that monetarily sovereign states should primarily consider the resources available to buy with little to no consideration of the financial side, since such states are never financially constrained. The focus of the government then is all about making sure such resources are properly managed. That means the primary role of taxation is to free resources (read people) that can be purchased. It recognises a potential cause of inflation is a lack of things the state needs being available to purchase by the state leading the state to out-compete the private sector using its greater financial power. Conversely, if things are available to buy, then the state can use its financial might to buy up those things. This is most notable in the primary policy prescription of MMT of the Job Guarantee - acting as an employer of last resort and providing a job to anyone that wants one (and in the process, rendering the minimum wage somewhat moot). The JG is especially interesting when you realise what you're actually doing is anchoring the value of the currency to X units per hour of unskilled labour. At that point, spending is all relative to that price anchor. Things can and should float relative to it in response to supply and demand, but that fundamentally the JG wage is the financial control point. It's kind of funny how little consideration is given in the mainstream to establishing a proper value for the currency given how much hand-wringing is performed over inflation fears.
aidenn0 2y ago
TIL: California has a higher minimum hourly wage($16) than Germany(€12.41).
- Voultapher 2y ago
  Keep the cost of living in mind.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Not when you factor in cost of things like college, healthcare, and transit.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ars 2y ago
    It's more complicated than that because you pay much high taxes in Germany, so you need higher wages to cover those taxes. A fair comparison would be after tax money, and then you can factor in those things you said. But even that is hard, because VAT makes good more expensive, so now you really need to compare cost of living.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > It's more complicated than that because you pay much high taxes in Germany, so you need higher wages to cover those taxes. Between health insurance premiums, copays, dental/vision, and uncovered stuff like compounded meds, our family reported $50k in medical expenses on last year's tax return. I've got two kids entering college in a couple of years. I'll take the higher taxes.
      - niemandhier 2y ago
        Also Note that if you do not earn enough, your kids get a universal stipend for university and uni is quite cheap at less than 1000€ per semester. It’s easy to get good education in Germany.
fzeroracer 2y ago
This seems accurate from my experience. An example of a similar situation here in Seattle is the minimum wage increase we've instituted. It resulted in a minor shift in working hours and prices but not a radical shock to the system and largely an improvement to the people that were working minimum wage jobs. Usually the confounding factor is how that minimum wage increase is absorbed. There's been a trend in my opinion for the rent seeking class (apartments, landowners, etc) to raise the cost of rent disproportionately knowing that they can siphon more money off the top. It results in both squeezing local businesses and preventing the wages from enriching the local economy. I don't know if Germany has a similar problem and would be curious to hear how they handle such things.
- nox101 2y ago
  some economists seemed to have found otherwise https://www.econtalk.org/jacob-vigdor-on-the-seattle-minimum-wage/ https://www.econtalk.org/jacob-vigdor-on-the-seattle-minimum... > He summarizes those results here arguing that while some workers earned higher wages, some or all of the gains were offset by reductions in hours worked and a reduction in the rate of job creation especially for low-skilled workers
  - fzeroracer 2y ago
    I can only speak to my personal experience living and working in Seattle. Economists for the most part seem divided with no clear consensus either way. There's a lot of different variables and angles you can examine that'll lean towards one way or another so I don't think there'll be one clear answer unfortunately, especially since the burst in inflation over the past few years warps data.
    - nox101 2y ago
      that article is from before the burst in inflation. With the burst in inflation I'd guess the stats are even more in favor that the raise in minimum wages killed even more jobs. I agree that there are different analysis. But, you can't just go by "my personal experience" as in "Seattle seems fine to me therefore nothing bad happened".
elvis19 2y ago
for comparison average IT job is starting at 22€/h in germany
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- lnsru 2y ago
  I mean 22€ is a cashier’s salary before taxes in Munich and good salary in some unnamed place in nowhere. This average number does not provide much useful information. University MINT freshmen make €55k in bigger cities, hard to imagine who can work for less nowadays.
  - CrimsonRain 2y ago
    If mints get €55 in Germany, how much do 5/10y exp engineers get usually?
    - lnsru 2y ago
      It depends as always. Whole industry is unionized in Germany and big companies pay according union's tables. These stupid tables are for 35 hour weeks. Last company was able to get 40 hours contract and it was ok. The company I denied during interview offered only 35 hours and plus 5 hours that must be negotiated every year. €95k and 35 hours is doable, but rather rare. €100k with 40 hours contract is on the higher end (in Munich). Subtract -15% for less experience, another -15% for bad location and another -15% for small companies. Add +20% for perfect match. Add another 30% for FAANGs as a stock bonus.
      - CrimsonRain 2y ago
        I don't understand the 35/38h contracts instead of 40h. Where did this come from? What exactly do you mean by bad location? Non city centers? Country sides? Shouldn't companies located at country sides pay higher to attract talent who otherwise won't relocate there? My experience with German workforce is that they (orc, not all) care really less about doing actual work, being proactive, and focusing on growth. And instead, they focus on documentation (and bureaucracy), don't rock the boat/don't take risk/do as minimum as possible to not get fired. Is yours similar?
jorgesborges 2y ago
I remember working at a kitchen being paid $x an hour, and when minimum wage was increased to just below that many of the cooks were mad to find themselves earning just above minimum wage. It was an interesting corollary I hadn't thought about before and while I wasn't mad it did feel like my value was depreciated.
- reshlo 2y ago
  When this happens, you should more easily be able to find another job that pays more or negotiate a raise, because employers know you now have better alternatives than you did before.
- langsoul-com 2y ago
  Minimum wage increases virtually all job wages because nobody wants to be paid mimimum wage.
iluvcommunism 2y ago
Raising minimum wage just raises unemployment for youth. The real minimum wage is 0.
- self_awareness 2y ago
  Go home iluvcommunism, you're drunk ;)
- Towaway69 2y ago
  Slavery is incredibly profitable for those ~~making~~ earning the profit.
esbranson 2y ago
If employers could reduce labor hours, they would. Regardless.

69 points by MPLan 2y ago

Bossler, Chittka and Schank found that after the second minimum wage increase (from EUR to 10.45 to EUR 12.00), average wages of the people who were earning less than EUR 12 went up by 6%. Moreover, there was no noticeable reduction in employment. There was however a slight reduction in hours worked – impacted individuals worked 1% fewer hours, meaning their overall monthly wages went up only by 5% on average. Thus, it appears that a significant minimum wage change had a net positive impact on workers with minimal downsides. (https://www.nominalnews.com/p/minimum-wages-employment-benefits https://www.nominalnews.com/p/minimum-wages-employment-benef...)

ensignavenger 2y ago
It does not seem like the study took into account inflation, though? If workers overall monthly wages went up 5%, was that offset by inflation in the price of things those workers buy?
- selectodude 2y ago
  If you look at the graph, they did take into consideration real vs nominal. Unfortunately, the jump in minimum wage happened too recently to get a long enough timeline to see the effect over more than 1 year so the outcome is TBD but the early data seems positive.
  - wwweston 2y ago
    Additionally, it's pretty obvious that many products wouldn't see price increases proportional to wage increases. This is especially true the higher the production volume / economies of scale. Imagine a burger joint where a worker pushes out a measley dozen burgers in an hour (I'd be surprised if volumes for most places are this low, but let's imagine). So, 5 min per burger. At fed minimum wage of $7.25/hr, labor costs for those burgers are about 60 cents. A cheap burger is $2 right now, $3-$5 is much more typical. So even at output volumes as low as a dozen per hour, non-labor costs are a much greater portion of each of these burgers, like 70%-90%. Double that minimum wage to $15/hr and assume all the cost is passed onto consumers and the price of these dozen burgers goes up by 65 cents. OK, let's assume a complete separation of cooking and register/order duties that requires at least two workers per dozen burgers per hour. We might see an increase of $2 per burger. And since most people can't eat a dozen burgers an hour (much less the likely much higher output of burgers), a doubling of minimum wage far outpaces whatever price increase is passed on. This is a simple model but even if you get more complicated, the outcome isn't much different. Generally speaking, even at economies of scale as low as a dozen per hour, wage increases outpace necessary price increases. Where do wage increases contribute to dramatically increased costs? Lower volume high focus work where skilled labor is most of the cost of producing the product, but generally markets have long since decided these people get paid much more than minimum wage, so minimum wage increases have no effect here. There's also the case where each unit requires a large team of labor. This tends to be at least semi-skilled in construction / fabrication / manufacturing where labor demands have long since left a legal wage floor behind. The real question is why the misconception that minimum wage increases result in broad upward price spirals is so common when you can figure out why that's unlikely with math most people have learned by the time they're teenagers. (I do think there's a good argument that labor markets are so thoroughly regional that it's probably better to have legal wage floors be set at the state and county level, but there's no reason a federal law couldn't be indexed off of local indicators with local guidance.)
    - reshlo 2y ago
      > The real question is why the misconception that minimum wage increases result in broad upward price spirals is so common when you can figure out why that's unlikely with math most people have learned by the time they're teenagers. Owners of companies have an incentive to encourage us to think this, firstly because it’s a distraction from the true cause of inflation (their greed), and secondly because a public resistant to the idea of raising the minimum wage helps them keep their profits higher. > "Inflation begets inflation. When people are expecting price rises they're also more accepting of them," he says… > "Greedflation is the idea that corporate profit expansion is contributing to high inflation. This has moved from a fringe view to the mainstream in Europe and the US in the last year, and there's a debate going on about it in Australia,"… > When the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, last month told the National Press Club that "rising profits are not the source of inflation pressures we have", he was accused by The Australia Institute think tank of a dereliction of duty. A report from the institute earlier this year said that 69 percent of excess inflation – inflation above the Reserve Bank's 2.5 percent target – came from high corporate profit margins.[0] [0] https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018891366/greedflation-is-it-inflation-or-are-businesses-just-greedy https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018891366...
      - doublepg23 2y ago
        even your own article offers a repudiation of this "greedflation" idea > But not everyone buys the greedflation argument. Professor of Economics at University of Waikato, Michael Cameron, calls himself a sceptic. > "I don't think that anybody who is promoting the idea of greedflation has given us a really good idea of what it is that they are referring to. Is it any time that someone's raising a price, that might be greedflation?" > Cameron says some of the factors behind New Zealand's high prices – a lack of competition in key industries such as grocery and building supplies – are not the same as other parts of the world.
missedthecue 2y ago
There's the legal minimum and then there's the prevailing market wage for low-skill work. That's somewhat unintuitive to measure, but I think it's really important for these studies. I'm not familiar with Germany, but in the US, federal minimum is $7.25, but almost no one earns that. I passed by a fast food place in a small town in very low cost Pennsylvania last week and the sign said $17/hr starting to serve fries. If the minimum wage was raised to $9.25, I assume there would be close to zero job losses and a minimal reduction in hours worked. $11, $14, probably the same. At $20, I'd expect to see problems. At $30, I think these problems would get catastrophic in terms of business closures and price increases. I don't see in the link that they modeled any of this, but without it, the study isn't super useful except as a talking point. At the end of the day, minimum wages are a price control, and price controls that impact and artificially shift the naturally occurring intersection point of supply and demand necessarily have consequences. Price controls on bread at $100 wouldn't cause problems. At $0.10 they would.
- tzweicent26347 2y ago
  Those sorts of signs at fast food places are often just to get people to apply and they come back with something just a little over minimum after the interview.

lifeisstillgood 2y ago

Since CPI (inflation) has gone up 30%+ since 2018 this seems eminently reasonable- in fact Inwoukd think inflation linked salaries would work quite well (unless governments will buy into the MMT idea and actually tax the wealthy)

hgomersall 2y ago
Why do you think the MMT idea is to tax the wealthy? If anything, the MMT idea is that the wealthy are not special and that tax needs to be broad base to achieve its purpose of freeing resources to be purchased by the state. The problem with the wealthy is their marginal propensity to consume is low compared to the masses. One might want to tax the wealthy for other reasons, but I'm not sure it can be easily motivated by MMT reasoning.
- lifeisstillgood 2y ago
  So my laypersons understanding is that a) Governments printed money massively to handle 2008/covid (on the order of tens trillions dollars) b) MMT says governments print money to spend it buying the services they want (ie roads, nurses, etc) then tax back the same amount thus having net no inflation and able to print the same amount again next cycle / year. c) if people can take the system so that they don’t pay tax but instead keep the money then governments cannot print same amount of money / end up causing inflation c) wealthiest in society are pulling away, tax rates for capital vs labour are not equal, the massive QE has ended up in hands of capital owners and as we don’t tax Wealth then each cycle of spend-tax means more is staying in private hands, it getting destroyed so more government spending must either be cut or raise inflation. So my limited understanding says “money is just tokens, tokens should equal productive capacity (multiplied by some thing something velocity), and if governments want to spend more tokens than are being destroyed through tax, either raise tax rates n those paying tax, or tax those not paying tax (ie tax wealthy) In the end it all comes back to rentierism- and that comes back to a land tax
  - hgomersall 2y ago
    You make some interesting points, but not MMT. It's actually quite an easy view to fall into which I also did for a bit based on a few, but nowhere near enough, snippets of MMT along with much prior baggage. The core point of MMT is that monetarily sovereign states should primarily consider the resources available to buy with little to no consideration of the financial side, since such states are never financially constrained. The focus of the government then is all about making sure such resources are properly managed. That means the primary role of taxation is to free resources (read people) that can be purchased. It recognises a potential cause of inflation is a lack of things the state needs being available to purchase by the state leading the state to out-compete the private sector using its greater financial power. Conversely, if things are available to buy, then the state can use its financial might to buy up those things. This is most notable in the primary policy prescription of MMT of the Job Guarantee - acting as an employer of last resort and providing a job to anyone that wants one (and in the process, rendering the minimum wage somewhat moot). The JG is especially interesting when you realise what you're actually doing is anchoring the value of the currency to X units per hour of unskilled labour. At that point, spending is all relative to that price anchor. Things can and should float relative to it in response to supply and demand, but that fundamentally the JG wage is the financial control point. It's kind of funny how little consideration is given in the mainstream to establishing a proper value for the currency given how much hand-wringing is performed over inflation fears.

aidenn0 2y ago

TIL: California has a higher minimum hourly wage($16) than Germany(€12.41).

Voultapher 2y ago
Keep the cost of living in mind.
ceejayoz 2y ago
Not when you factor in cost of things like college, healthcare, and transit.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ars 2y ago
  It's more complicated than that because you pay much high taxes in Germany, so you need higher wages to cover those taxes. A fair comparison would be after tax money, and then you can factor in those things you said. But even that is hard, because VAT makes good more expensive, so now you really need to compare cost of living.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > It's more complicated than that because you pay much high taxes in Germany, so you need higher wages to cover those taxes. Between health insurance premiums, copays, dental/vision, and uncovered stuff like compounded meds, our family reported $50k in medical expenses on last year's tax return. I've got two kids entering college in a couple of years. I'll take the higher taxes.
    - niemandhier 2y ago
      Also Note that if you do not earn enough, your kids get a universal stipend for university and uni is quite cheap at less than 1000€ per semester. It’s easy to get good education in Germany.

fzeroracer 2y ago

This seems accurate from my experience. An example of a similar situation here in Seattle is the minimum wage increase we've instituted. It resulted in a minor shift in working hours and prices but not a radical shock to the system and largely an improvement to the people that were working minimum wage jobs. Usually the confounding factor is how that minimum wage increase is absorbed. There's been a trend in my opinion for the rent seeking class (apartments, landowners, etc) to raise the cost of rent disproportionately knowing that they can siphon more money off the top. It results in both squeezing local businesses and preventing the wages from enriching the local economy. I don't know if Germany has a similar problem and would be curious to hear how they handle such things.

nox101 2y ago
some economists seemed to have found otherwise https://www.econtalk.org/jacob-vigdor-on-the-seattle-minimum-wage/ https://www.econtalk.org/jacob-vigdor-on-the-seattle-minimum... > He summarizes those results here arguing that while some workers earned higher wages, some or all of the gains were offset by reductions in hours worked and a reduction in the rate of job creation especially for low-skilled workers
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  I can only speak to my personal experience living and working in Seattle. Economists for the most part seem divided with no clear consensus either way. There's a lot of different variables and angles you can examine that'll lean towards one way or another so I don't think there'll be one clear answer unfortunately, especially since the burst in inflation over the past few years warps data.
  - nox101 2y ago
    that article is from before the burst in inflation. With the burst in inflation I'd guess the stats are even more in favor that the raise in minimum wages killed even more jobs. I agree that there are different analysis. But, you can't just go by "my personal experience" as in "Seattle seems fine to me therefore nothing bad happened".

elvis19 2y ago

for comparison average IT job is starting at 22€/h in germany

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lnsru 2y ago
I mean 22€ is a cashier’s salary before taxes in Munich and good salary in some unnamed place in nowhere. This average number does not provide much useful information. University MINT freshmen make €55k in bigger cities, hard to imagine who can work for less nowadays.
- CrimsonRain 2y ago
  If mints get €55 in Germany, how much do 5/10y exp engineers get usually?
  - lnsru 2y ago
    It depends as always. Whole industry is unionized in Germany and big companies pay according union's tables. These stupid tables are for 35 hour weeks. Last company was able to get 40 hours contract and it was ok. The company I denied during interview offered only 35 hours and plus 5 hours that must be negotiated every year. €95k and 35 hours is doable, but rather rare. €100k with 40 hours contract is on the higher end (in Munich). Subtract -15% for less experience, another -15% for bad location and another -15% for small companies. Add +20% for perfect match. Add another 30% for FAANGs as a stock bonus.
    - CrimsonRain 2y ago
      I don't understand the 35/38h contracts instead of 40h. Where did this come from? What exactly do you mean by bad location? Non city centers? Country sides? Shouldn't companies located at country sides pay higher to attract talent who otherwise won't relocate there? My experience with German workforce is that they (orc, not all) care really less about doing actual work, being proactive, and focusing on growth. And instead, they focus on documentation (and bureaucracy), don't rock the boat/don't take risk/do as minimum as possible to not get fired. Is yours similar?

jorgesborges 2y ago

I remember working at a kitchen being paid $x an hour, and when minimum wage was increased to just below that many of the cooks were mad to find themselves earning just above minimum wage. It was an interesting corollary I hadn't thought about before and while I wasn't mad it did feel like my value was depreciated.

reshlo 2y ago
When this happens, you should more easily be able to find another job that pays more or negotiate a raise, because employers know you now have better alternatives than you did before.
langsoul-com 2y ago
Minimum wage increases virtually all job wages because nobody wants to be paid mimimum wage.

iluvcommunism 2y ago

Raising minimum wage just raises unemployment for youth. The real minimum wage is 0.

self_awareness 2y ago
Go home iluvcommunism, you're drunk ;)
Towaway69 2y ago
Slavery is incredibly profitable for those ~~making~~ earning the profit.

esbranson 2y ago

If employers could reduce labor hours, they would. Regardless.