What if you had unions or proper labor laws that actually guaranteed this? As an European it's weird to see you having to rely on the "kindness" of the company to not get fcked over.
Yea, I am OK with the American model.
It is possible in an era of remote work to outsource any American software job to a lower paid, better skilled worker in a low cost of labour country.
Companies choose not to do this. Maybe they want people they can meet, maybe investors don't like it, maybe the paperwork scares then. I don't know the reason but every American programmer who has a job has it because thier employer chose not to hire a better cheaper foreigner with less rights.
Looking at it this way we can say that the American job market and salary expectations are not related to international salaries. And it follows that the same can be true in Europe.
My personal theory is, the world runs on dollars. America prints dollars. The closer you are to the fountain the more water you get, so Americans get more dollars.
Are you personally willing to work for 1/2 or 1/3 the pay you receive, so that if you ever get laid off you have a slightly better severance package?
I am not.
I would rather get paid what the most I can/am able to negotiate, and live in a country with so many opportunities, that if I did ever get laid off, I could move to another opportunity with equally attractive pay and benefits easily.
Giving up a huge chunk of your earnings potential in order to have your severance package, should you ever need it, be slightly better doesn't seem like a good tradeoff to me.
That's a false dilemma. It's not like you would have to give up half your salary for this.
> and live in a country with so many opportunities
That's only because you're a SE. The rest of your country doesn't have those opportunities. I think rather most of them would have preferred the social security net of most European countries instead of working for less than minimum wage begging for tips, being laid of on a moments notice.
I mean, how's SV with all the homeless, robberies etc.? Is that kind of society worth the slightly larger pay? Isn't it nice if your neighbors also have it good?
To answer your question, yes, I want to live in a society where I can pursue an extremely high quality of life for myself and my family. My neighbors have it pretty damn good from what I can tell.
Edit: wait, I was once on the French side of the alps. Hardly enough to let me speak with any authority on any thing but snow, though.
I don't even live anywhere near SV, I used a $110K average for the USA in my example, if we were talking SV that would probably be closer to $400K, so 10X what a programmer in France might make. I really don't think anyone in SV would be willing to work as a programmer for what an average programmer in SV makes so that they were guaranteed a better payout if they got fired.
Also, how many SWEs in SV make $400k? Do you think they're a representative sample of white collar workers for that city?
10x means 90% difference, all consumed by the more expensive healthcare? That's like one order of magnitude wrong.
> how many SWEs in SV make $400k?
Saved you a google: > The average total compensation of a Software Engineer in San Francisco Bay Area, US is $242,000.
the topic was programmers, all "white collar workers" is not relevant to this conversation.
Healthcare costs could help to make up for that for many employees. The average American spent ~$13,000 in health care expenses in 2022, but a full time employee making minimum wage only gets ~$15,000 a year. Even if someone earns twice the minimum wage, healthcare costs will eat a huge percentage of what they'd earn.
Obviously software in the US is an exception, although here too wages and benefits are being slashed at every opportunity. The tech industry is hard at work suppressing wages and hiring from a global pool of talent (and waiting for AI to replace employees) so jobs in software might not stay so nice for very long, except for a select few with the most rare skills.
Oh, and USA is one the countries with most inequality, which plays in favor of a minority at the expense of the vast majority. Different story in France, for instance, where solidarity between rich and poor is higher through taxes, although not perfect.
Really depends what you want out of life.
You’re disregarding that Europe is reaping what it has sown when it comes to economic development.
Not sure how you are measuring "inequality", but even in a backwater like Hungary you don't have adults rationing insulin made for pets.
Then hiring would be much more expensive, much less new companies would be able to start up, and as a result, salaries in tech would be 2-3 times lower, like in Europe.
What would you choose, a 2-3 times higher salary or a guarantee of things that you would often get anyway?
If it meant a guarantee for all workers, allowing people to not become desperate enough to become porch pirates, or break into cars to steal stuff, or point a gun to my head because I have more stuff than them, or any other social malaise fanned by the lack of safety nets, I'd take the guarantee 10 out of 10 times.
The fact that you have no security net in the US is probably also harmful when it comes to startups. Few can take the risk.
Is the cost worth it? Do I want fair conditions and a good work balance, or do I want to brag about something that made my employer's shareholders really proud? Is the pay worth it if I can't miss a day of work to tend to more important matters?
I run a website for immigrants in Germany. I have to spend a lot of words explaining that it's okay to take sick days, that you won't lose your insurance if you lose your job, and other things that Europeans take for granted.
I think this is a completely wrong take from the armchair philosophers.
You actually can't do great things when you treat people like shit. The people who actually do great things strike the right balance between applying pressure and requiring excellence and treating people well. The results of purely treating people like slaves is mediocre.
Even the pyramids were built by well paid craftsmen, not slaves as is commonly believed.
Half right. It's currently believed that the bulk of the workers were lots and lots of paid laborers. Not craftsmen. That would be expensive!
https://www.britannica.com/video/226777/did-enslaved-people-...
The only companies that treat their employees poorly are those that have people lined up to work for them. The employees must think the tradeoff is worth it.
Employees should be able to choose a company with stability and lower pay or higher pay and less stability. The other option is to take the high pay job and pay for additional private insurance to cover what your employer will not. The people who want stability shouldn't force it on the people who are comfortable without it.
Is life better in every respect? No. But there's a lot more to life than earning potential.
Is that supposed to be something positive? Why would you want a relaxed work culture if you like your job?
After a certain value is for show off only, or maybe lit cigars with burning notes.
Just in tech, Europe developed ARM chips, ASML lithography machines, and DeepMind's AI breakthroughs. These underpin a few trillion dollars of global economic activity.
Which is a good thing. Massive tech companies are a negative thing, not a positive thing.
It's about labor market flexibility. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/labor-market-flexibilit...
Overly strong labor unions make the entire economy less nimble in rapidly changing environments.
No need for gig economy "flexibility ", making rich millionaires.
Secondly, I strongly doubt shitty labor laws have been the secret formula behind the success.
Or please direct me to some literature supporting your opinion.
Edit: Page 19 here [0] would directly question your assumption.
[0] https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-2000-2023-en-...
That is to say, you're not wrong but if the hope is that people are going to be like "by golly, I've never thought of that, I'll just run right out and join a union" um... no.