I'm always angered by these over-generalizations for the whole of Europe. Europe is not a single country with identical laws and working conditions but they differ wildly by borders.
The minimum amount of vacation days by EU law is 20 per year for every full-time worker in the EU but workers can get more based on union negotiations of each individual country or individual company perks that wish to attract talent.
In Austria, the norm is 25 paid vacation days a year for all full-time workers including tech workers. I rarely saw more that 25 days of vacation offered for tech workers here even at supposedly "top" companies which Austria doesn't have many of.
>paid overtime
Same for this. In Austria, most tech jobs don't pay overtime (thanks to shitty "all-in" contracts) but, factory style jobs with clocked shift-work do, since those are usually unionized and the metall workers union is one of the strongest in the country. Also many jobs, especially in public healthcare sector do a lot of unpaid overtime due to underfunding and staff shortages. In low-skilled jobs with high competition, like hospitality and cleaning services, unpaid overtime and your boss being abusive is pretty much the norm.
>Ah, and in some countries having too many companies on the CV isn't well seen
Gee, let me guess, hyper-conservative, 100-year-old German boomer companies(factories)? They're free to expect that, but staying 10+ years at the same company was good way-back-when there wasn't rampant inflation, and rampant real-estate prices, and a factory worker could support a family and buy a home from his income and he'd be employed till retirement and the company would always invest in his training. Those days are long-gone now thanks to globalization, offshoring of jobs and unrestricted immigration, so any company is happy to keep your wage growth below asset inflation levels as you loose out and the company wins as inflation is eating their loan paybacks and the salary they have to pay you, so the only way for you to claw back some of those losses is to job-hop (if you can).
And if you don't like it, there's nothing you can do about it if you don't have skills in high demand in a filed suffering from a shortage in your domain, as unlike the 1960's when even workers with basic education(high-school) had leverage, the company can now hire through a plethora of more candidates thanks to easy immigration, or offshore your job completely to a palace with less employee/environmental protection, while paying fuck-all in taxes through their shell company registered at a post-box in Luxembourg, basically depriving workers of most of their leverage they had in the past. That's why political parties on both extremes of the spectrum are seeing a resurgence in Europe. If we don't fix the rampant wealth inequality yesterday, we're gonna see political extremes and civil unrest growing stronger in Europe. Which is why I guess the EU nation states are so keen on gaining more surveillance powers and banning encryption, to make sure they stomp out any civil unrest before it happens.
The biggest perk we have in most EU countries is paid sick leave and health insurance if you lose your job. If your health ever declines and you end up loosing your job this is invaluable to not becoming homeless. Although many of those social benefits suffered cutbacks and receiving them became stricter in some countries after the 2008 recession.
Yeah same in the UK. 25 days is the norm. 28 days is good. 30 days is very rare. Also nobody gets paid overtime, the company's pension contribution is 5% of your salary.
Yes benefits are better in Europe, but not so much that you're better off earning $100k here than $200k in America.
> We're just colonised by massive US corporations which ship the profits back to the US (and avoid as much tax as they can!).
We're colonized by the over-regulation that doesn't appreciate entrepreneurship and stifles innovation. That's why big tech almost never starts in Europe. For better or for worse.
100K is really high for Europe unless you're in Switzerland/UK. Was living in Netherlands and 85K Euro is really really good, that's probably the top 10% of engineering earners.
The UK implementation of the WTR requires that (full time) works have a minimum of 28 days paid leave (including the Bank/Public holidays - of which there about 8).
Contract normally specify the paid leave excluding such Bank Holidays, so will be a minimum of 20. It is only the days above those 20 where the employer is giving one something extra.
Err, what? The company I work for (in the US) has like 13-14 paid holidays, and recently gave everyone an extra 3 days off right before the New Year. I think we probably have one or two more than average, but not by that much.
Why would you include national holidays into vacation days? National holiday is more like an extra sunday. You can't move it for example if you're on a medical leave through it.
I worked for a company in the UK who allowed the option to work on Bank Holidays and take those days in lieu, was great way to actually get some developing done without the constant interruption of working in an open plan office.
The standard is 20 days of holidays, although if you've been in the workforce for long enough (I think it's 10 years) or completed tertiary studies and worked for a few less years you'll get 26 days of holidays each year.
There is paid overtime with a maximum number of days and hours that you can work per year. Though in my industry some people end up chewing through that within the first few months. Things are better in this company for now.
As far as job hopping on the resume, I think the optimal thing to do is to hop every few years, but I don't see that as a negative.
Sure it was a stereotype, still there is contract negotiation, there is the law for all cases and what one can manage to put into their contract.
Also get knowledgeable about work law and have a legal insurance.
Even downgrading my example to how things go back home in Portugal versus DACH where I have been for the last 20 years, I would pick our conditions over FAANG salary without the social part.
Claiming everyone in Europe gets 30 vacation days when that's obviously false is not a stereotype, but a gross over exaggeration. Just because you get that perk doesn't magically make it true for the whole EU.
If you have more people competing for the same job, then the wages go down, and vice-versa, the less potential employees you have, the higher the wages have to go to fill the position.
The supply/demands fraction is basic math. Are you saying math doesn't work?
No, I'm saying research has shown that wages are depressed for some workers, but not by the levels the anti-immigration brigade would have you believe.
>research has shown that wages are depressed for some workers, but not by the levels the anti-immigration brigade would have you believe.
That statement is pretty vague and pretty obvious on some levels but provides no concrete numbers and evidence that's generally applicable (basically it's easy to cherry pick some results and make generic claims afterwards that don't hold water).
I'm not pro-immigration and I'm not anti-immigration but I know math and personally experienced that whenever you have a lower supply of candidates then I have much more leverage for negotiations and better work conditions and have experienced the opposite, of employers being dicks due to over-supply of labor.
I therefore take those "research" findings with a generous train load of salt.
I'm always angered by these over-generalizations for the whole of Europe. Europe is not a single country with identical laws and working conditions but they differ wildly by borders.
The minimum amount of vacation days by EU law is 20 per year for every full-time worker in the EU but workers can get more based on union negotiations of each individual country or individual company perks that wish to attract talent.
In Austria, the norm is 25 paid vacation days a year for all full-time workers including tech workers. I rarely saw more that 25 days of vacation offered for tech workers here even at supposedly "top" companies which Austria doesn't have many of.
>paid overtime
Same for this. In Austria, most tech jobs don't pay overtime (thanks to shitty "all-in" contracts) but, factory style jobs with clocked shift-work do, since those are usually unionized and the metall workers union is one of the strongest in the country. Also many jobs, especially in public healthcare sector do a lot of unpaid overtime due to underfunding and staff shortages. In low-skilled jobs with high competition, like hospitality and cleaning services, unpaid overtime and your boss being abusive is pretty much the norm.
>Ah, and in some countries having too many companies on the CV isn't well seen
Gee, let me guess, hyper-conservative, 100-year-old German boomer companies(factories)? They're free to expect that, but staying 10+ years at the same company was good way-back-when there wasn't rampant inflation, and rampant real-estate prices, and a factory worker could support a family and buy a home from his income and he'd be employed till retirement and the company would always invest in his training. Those days are long-gone now thanks to globalization, offshoring of jobs and unrestricted immigration, so any company is happy to keep your wage growth below asset inflation levels as you loose out and the company wins as inflation is eating their loan paybacks and the salary they have to pay you, so the only way for you to claw back some of those losses is to job-hop (if you can).
And if you don't like it, there's nothing you can do about it if you don't have skills in high demand in a filed suffering from a shortage in your domain, as unlike the 1960's when even workers with basic education(high-school) had leverage, the company can now hire through a plethora of more candidates thanks to easy immigration, or offshore your job completely to a palace with less employee/environmental protection, while paying fuck-all in taxes through their shell company registered at a post-box in Luxembourg, basically depriving workers of most of their leverage they had in the past. That's why political parties on both extremes of the spectrum are seeing a resurgence in Europe. If we don't fix the rampant wealth inequality yesterday, we're gonna see political extremes and civil unrest growing stronger in Europe. Which is why I guess the EU nation states are so keen on gaining more surveillance powers and banning encryption, to make sure they stomp out any civil unrest before it happens.
The biggest perk we have in most EU countries is paid sick leave and health insurance if you lose your job. If your health ever declines and you end up loosing your job this is invaluable to not becoming homeless. Although many of those social benefits suffered cutbacks and receiving them became stricter in some countries after the 2008 recession.