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Comment by olabyne | Hacker News Reader

Hey french here. You are speaking of raw income, right?

I don't think we are content with lower wages. It's just that you cannot really compare EU-US just like that. You need to compare cost of living, entirely. Paid leave. Public holiday. College fees. Working time.

But also what I call 'peace of mind'. In Europe, you have retirement from the state. You will never have crazy, 6 figures hospital bills. My employer fires me ? I don't care, I will stay get paid through unemployment insurance. Getting sick ? Still paid.

However, even if you can't compare US-EU numbers, in Europe engineers are underpaid, and it's good that you try to raise your voice through your colleagues. I think we are also a bit shy about sharing numbers in the office, which only benefits to the employer

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Exactly, gross salary.

It's true you can't really compare directly like that, but just as an example let's normalize the data on the point of vacation/holidays. EU: 52 wk / yr * 5 day / wk = 260 days / yr 35 holiday / yr = 225 working / yr 260 / 225 * 65 = 75.1k per year normalized

vs USA: 10 holiday / yr = 250 days / yr 260 / 250 * 160 = 166.4k per year normalized

Here we can see how even when considering something like holiday: the difference is still not even remotely close.

You're absolutely right about the 'peace of mind' aspect. This is something that I really love and will definitely miss... But let's not fool ourselves. For example it's common knowledge in Germany that the state retirement will only cover about 50% the cost of living. Not sure about the situation in France, but this means I still need to do a huge amount of self-saving and investing just to live at the bare minimum.

In the end I completely hear your argument and can understand it.... It's just everything in life is pretty gray and situational.

Note: if anything I have said is wrong, definitely let me know! Nobody is perfect!

Seems US estimate may be low. I work in a large US tech company and I get 14 holidays (and we are typically dismissed 3 hrs early on afternoons before holidays, which adds up to another 5 days) and another 3-4 weeks of vacation I choose when to use during the year. I'm typically off about 35-40 business days a year when all taken together.

> I don't think we are content with lower wages. It's just that you cannot really compare EU-US just like that. You need to compare cost of living, entirely. Paid leave. Public holiday. College fees. Working time.

None of this justifies the lower pay compared to US tech where it's very common to have a good medical coverage and much higher standards of living. It's not like France or Germany are cheap for the average french or german. All things considered, french and germans end up taking home less than their american counterparts. Maybe this worked well in the last 50 years in Europe, but it most certainly won't in the next 30 when you see fewer younger people entering the workforce and the pension and medical system won't be sustained in Europe.

Sharing numbers in the office DOES NOT benefit the employer. Share your salaries, bonuses and equity based compensation! That way your employer can no longer take advantage of you or your peers!

I don’t think you read OP correctly. They’re saying that because devs are too shy to talk about salaries in the office, it only helps employers.

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