Hacker News Reader

Comment by StavrosK | Hacker News Reader

So what? You're still calculating the per month cost. Insurance us always going to be included in that.

It's not a "so what". Taking care of an employee's social security is a huge overhead for an employer.

Also the OP is talking about "outsourcing" work to Greece. I really don't understand where social security comes in. By definition he's going to look for freelancers.

Unless he's planning to open shop in Greece, for some weird reason, in which case social insurance is going to be the least of his problems.

As a freelancer, the cost to cover my taxes/social security will be calculated into any offer i give. I am in effect employing myself and you are contracting out an employee of my company. The rate given will need to cover the costs of my employees taxes and social security. True i can contract out myself to multiple clients per month and lower my rate by splitting the SS taxes between them. but, in Greece, you run a high risk of work being canceled/delayed and exposing yourself to tax liabilities. Don't get me started on companies that want you to cut an invoice then pay you months later. Putting yourself into a situation where you have income on the books, but not in the hand is a bad idea.

> True i can contract out myself to multiple clients per month and lower my rate by splitting the SS taxes between them

Even that doesn't matter, social security and taxes will be calculated in your hourly rate the same way whether you have multiple clients or you work full time for only one client.

Doing contract work for Greek customers is out of the question for the reasons you mentioned.

The only way it makes sense to work from Greece as a contractor is having foreign customers. Otherwise, you're better off working as a regular employee.

As the other commenters said, it's simple. If you're a freelancer and need $1000 after everything, in Hungary the total cost is $1200 (figures pulled out of my ass) and in Greece the total cost is $2000. Who do you think is going to pay the extra cost? The Hungarian will quote you $12/hr and the Greek will quote you $20/hr.

That said, my insurance is 200 euros/mo (fixed), so I'm not sure where the 70% figure is coming from. Maybe my insurance carrier (TSMEDE) is just cheaper.

I never said a Hungarian or a Polish is not going to be more competitive.

I never said you're not going to factor in your social security costs. I don't know why the conversation is going that way.

My question is still unanswered: why would he pay explicitly their social security costs?

My social security costs are about 225/mo. I mean seriously, even if you wanted to push 225 per month to only a single client, it would be such an inconsequential number that I don't know why we're talking about it. We are still talking about software engineering jobs right?

But from 1700 to 3000 there's a huge gap. Plus, as I previously said, the overhead of having to deal with the Greek social security system is so prohibitively high that I don't understand why someone would go through such trouble.

I don't understand who you think pays for costs. The customer ultimately pays for all costs. You take your monthly costs, divide them by the number of working days, you have your cost per day. Someone who has higher insurance cost will cost more per day. I don't think I can break this down further :(

Dear friend, I don't think you're actually reading my replies. It's like you're on a conversation on your own :(

Please don't tell me again about how someone with higher insurance costs will cost more per day. No one is discussing this. At least not me. This is simple math. Actually I've even said the same thing myself higher up.

This is going to be my last effort of explaining where the OP, I replied to, is wrong. Because he is wrong, there's no way around it. If I fail, well I'll blame myself for not expressing myself correctly. But please, make an effort to read carefully my replies.

There are 3 key points in the OP's comment: 1) He talks about outsourcing, 2) he talks about social security costs and 3) he mentions a figure(1700 net which amounts to 3000 after the costs)

I've never heard anyone who's looking to outsource work talking about social security costs. In order to care about such things it means that you are a domestic employer. If we were talking about this particular case, the OP should have to have a Greek business, so by definition it wouldn't be outsourcing.

I work as a contractor. My employer(outside of Greece) knows nothing about my tax rate, social security costs, etc. Nothing! I sent him an invoice, they send me the money.

The strange thing about what the OP mentioned is the figure. The figure is correct BUT only if he's talking about the IKA social security system. Which of course is wrong, since he should be looking for freelancers who DON'T have IKA but either yours(ΤΣΜΕΔΕ, can you be a freelancer with ΤΣΜΕΔΕ? I don't know) or mine(ΟΑΕΕ/ΤΕΒΕ). In other words, he was misinformed and scared away.

Since if he's willing to give 1700 eu/mo to a Greek developer, even if said developer absorbs the social security costs, he's left with ~1500, which is decent compared to what is the current standard in today's Greek economy.

I hope I made my point. Have a nice day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com