European Remote Worker Index | Hacker News Reader

European Remote Worker Index

brother.co.uk

51 pointsNKosmatos61 comments

The "happiness" index is not applicable to remote workers. Happiness index is essentially measured by asking locals how happy they are. This has nothing to do with whether an outsider (e.g. an American) would become happier if they moved to that country. It is more of a cultural indicator of how they approach and view life. Countries where the culture is to complain a lot get a 'low' happiness index (e.g. France and Italy), while people who are are pragmatic and rarely complain get a 'high' happiness index (e.g. Denmark).

Asking locals how happy they are has little information whether an outsider would be happy living there.

Just an example: Dutch people are very happy living in the Netherlands. But someone who is used to living in a city with good restaurants and good weather will absolutely hate the Netherlands. Biking is not fun when it's windy and rainy outside, but Dutch people don't mind it because they think it's normal. Dutch people also don't care about food as much as Italians (a thick piece of bread with a thin piece of slice is a lunch), and the stark difference in quality of restaurants between Netherlands and Italy shows this.

I love the way you describe dutch lunches - a thin piece of slice. I will use this in the future to refer to lackluster food.

It was a typo, but happy that it worked out as imagery.

what is the original word?

Stereotypically, probably "thin slice of cheese" :)

This question should be rephrased using objective metrics. It’s still a difficult metric but at least it wouldn’t merely measure cultural or even linguistic quirks.

Ask how many worry about their health, losing their jobs, crime, money, how many feel they have enough and fulfilling free time, trust their neighbors and so on.

This tracks, I live in Thessaloniki and it's a fantastic city to live in (relatively, anyway) if you're not making a Greek salary.

> Just an example: Dutch people are very happy living in the Netherlands.

Is that so? I had the impression that impression that a far-right politician, Geert Wilders, won the last elections in the Netherlands precisely because people in the Netherlands were, for a very big part, not happy at all with the state of thing?

One of the big issues in the election was cost and availability of housing. I think most Dutch people are happy to live in the Netherlands (and want to keep living there), but are unhappy that it's getting so expensive, and worry things will get worse with the growing population and limited space (and construction not keeping up), which led to some anti-immigration feelings (unfortunately).

More concretely, I know plenty of people who would like to live in Amsterdam (or more centrally), but were forced to live in the outskirts or neighboring cities due to cost - while central Amsterdam is increasingly filled by expats and tourists. The mayor is trying to counteract this and keep Amsterdam for "Amsterdammers", but that's difficult, of course. I presume similar issues exist in other Dutch cities.

>The mayor is trying to counteract this and keep Amsterdam for "Amsterdammers", but that's difficult, of course. I presume similar issues exist in other cities.

Housing costs are always an issue but I haven't heard of any issues with Helsinki being "filled by expats and tourists". Perhaps it's because it's a relatively small city, the person seeking to move to Finland doesn't want to be in an urban environment or people just aren't moving in at all.

Really, the only place "filled with tourists" is Lapland, where at one point you might hear more Chinese around town than Finnish.

Sorry, I meant other Dutch cities (edited). The tourists part might be specific to Amsterdam but afaik there are plenty of expats in Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht, etc. as well.

>I haven't heard of any issues with Helsinki being "filled by expats and tourists"

Because unlike NL, Finalnd is not a tax heven, the place where most global multinational F500 corporations choose to incorporate their EU HQ and employing thounds of well paid immigrants from around the world, causing gentrification in an already small and dense country.

Maybe if they raised corporate taxes and bureocracy, their overcrowding and immigration issues would fix themselves as big corporations and international workers relocate to Switzerland, Ireland or Luxembourg.

You can't have your cake and eat it too, as in keep being an attractive tax heaven and still expect housing to stay affordable for very long. Something has to give.

I thought Ireland was already the go-to tax haven?

They all are.

They're not happy with tax, healthcare, cost of living, immigration.

You're right about the food but for me being able to have my kids bike to school safely has been very nice in the Netherlands. I am not Dutch.

The weather doesn't seem to have been a criterion, does it? If I think about places in Europe where I would like to live and work remotely, I'm thinking Portugal, Spain, Italy. Certainly not Luxembourg, Denamrk, Netherlands and Iceland...

Also, I've been to Luxembourg myself, and the people I met there were drawing a Luxembourg salary but living across the border in France, because real estate is just much, much cheaper there.

I’m based in Portugal, and found it ridiculous it wasn’t mentioned in any category.

Spent dome time in Peniche last year working remote. Loved it and highly recommend.

Seems weird. I don’t know anyone that lived in Portugal that didn’t love it. Maybe the authors were from way up north and consider summers that don’t even frost over once to be stiflingly hot. Personally, I consider the percentage of the year I need protective clothing to safely go outdoors a big factor for happiness.

I felt same for Switzerland, but then it ranked the most expensive countries and I understood what went wrong.

IMO this is seriously flawed.

Any index like this where Berlin or Barcelona or Switzerland or any other city/country with a mature tech ecosystem (or a very nice weathe, why not?) are missing from the top spots is basically useless.

For example: nobody in Europe ever talks about Luxembourg and AFAIK even less when talking about working remotely.

It might be attractive in principle, as the richest country in Europe with the highest average salary or for being at the center of continental Europe, but it's hardly a destination people dream about.

Reykjavik too, been there a few times, it's not the place you want to go spend a long time working remotely, unless you are Icelandic.

It's simply too small and isolated.

I would not bring.my family to live there just to work remotely.

To be fair, if you make life decisions based on listicles on the website of a printer manufacturer, you might love living in Luxembourg. And if you're white, middle class, and hate having interesting experiences.

For everyone else there's Berlin, Lisbon, Prague, Milan, Copenhagen... Essentially every exquisite city in Europe is missing from the list.

I remember a Bulgarian who was working for the EU told me Luxembourg was crazy boring and that she was happy that the EU bureaucracy moved her (and some other second class Eastern European employees) to another more vibrant city in Eastern Europe.

Milan, no. Crazy expensive and too sophisticated. Bergamo, yes. Prague, too full of tourists. Plzen or Brno, better. Lisbon, same. Berlin has crappy broadband and it takes forever to get it hooked up. I'd much rather work in Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg. They have good beer and Gruß Gott. Copenhagen? No way. Crazy expensive, the weather is just crap even compared to London. The countryside is much nicer in Denmark if you can put up with the weather.

> Barcelona

Last time I was there beaches were swamped by drug dealers and the city by pickpockets. Berlin is not as bad but it’s not great either. Wouldnt recommend them to anyone.

Is the list for americans? Wouldn't remote workers do a little bit of location arbitrage? Who in their right mind would choose to live in Luxembourg since even the people who are forced to work there choose to live elsewhere

I "love" Brother for their printers, but please stick to that.

This list is as random and arbitrary as someone wiping their ass and produce an equivalent list.

The only saving grace is the context: it's the UK site so maybe it's tailored for those people but I still have my doubts.

This article/post was circulated by many news sites in Greece and created a lot of discussions.

I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed, but I can understand the ranking based on various data. For people interested, Greece is quite nice for remote working, with many nice places to live/work/enjoy.

could you give more details ?

I live in Thessaloniki, and the weather is always great (maybe too great, we haven't had almost any rain this year, due to climate change), the city has a vibrant night life, great restaurants, a fairly good variety of things to do, is very bicycle-friendly if you live near the waterfront, relatively cheap, etc.

It has its downsides, but I really can't believe it's one of the worst for remote workers.

One of my pet peeves is the description of "great weather"

What's great weather for some is literal hell on earth for some other person

Well, you know, sunny and pleasant six months of the year, rainy for three, boiling alive for three.

> boiling alive for three.

I don't believe you. That would imply the involvement of water :-) Isn't it more like roasting over a bed of hot coals

Oh no, it's very humid.

As a remote worker you have to deal with an arbitrary and dysfunctional state and bureaucracy. Also international schools, healthcare and safety matter to workers, as opposed to tourists

I live in Sweden and work remote. I’m actually thinking about moving somewhere else. but my top concern is taxes, which doesn’t seem to included in this comparison.

My exact thought. They call Switzerland expensive but depending on what remote work means you pay less taxes than in nearly any other country making the slightly higher prices irrelevant.

The main reason I can't simply move anywhere i want to is because I would effectively earn less in most cases while increasing burocracy overhead for entrepreneurship.

Taxes? Education? No way to review all stats. Very useless as is, but a better article on the same topic would be highly appreciated.

Methodology should also include broadband availability and reliability.

> Methodology should also include broadband availability and reliability.

I live on the country n 1 on that list: Luxembourg. 100% fiber optic coverage across the whole country (OK, it's not a big country, but there's fiber everywhere).

Nomadlist.com

I live in Aarhus and its pretty good here, but I do think the lack of international airports nearby can make things pretty painful for remote folks who plan to visit other countries and family abroad. The nearest airport (Billund) is at least 90 minutes away.

Living in Aarhus and Aalborg will only make you happy if you have roots in Denmark. I can’t imagine anyone having a good life moving there to do remote work from other country. You’re going to have zero social contact and the quality of services for the money is just meh. As others have pointed, the rating is meaningless.

The fact that the stats that drive this could be weighted in any arbitrary way makes the overall rankings pretty worthless in my eyes. And looking at the top 10 vs bottom 10 kind of validates these thoughts. I would much rather live in most of the bottom ten than in the top ten, if we're talking long term.

Here's what my ideal remote working city would look like:

- Cheap.

- Nice, clean, pleasant, pedestrian-oriented public spaces with good architecture.

- Lively but not too over-crowded, not full of tourists.

- Nice nature nearby.

Something like cheap Luzern (or any Swiss city with a population above 20k) basically.

Don’t forget: manageable bureaucracy and reasonable tax system.

Depending on how you earn your money and pay your taxes, Switzerland already IS the cheaper option. What does saving $1000 on a apartment mean when you pay that and more extra in taxes and bureaucratic overhead.

Things like good health Care, quality food or quality/brand products aren't cheaper at the same standard anywhere else either.

The daycare in Switzerland is going to be extremely expensive compared to neighbors.

I mean it sure depends on how much you make but this could still easily fall into 'who cares if you pay $500 more for something when you pay half of the taxes'

If Swiss daycare is anywhere like Seattle's, for 2 kids 1 year would cost $50K, which is a high percentage on its own all the way up until $200K income.

And for FAT retiring low income taxes are compensated by wealth tax.

$25k per child sounds about right for full-time child daycare here too. However my calculation is different let's say Germany or Luxembourg might be 'only' $15k that's 'just' a $10k difference (highly doubt it's so much less, especially at the same quality) Those $10k are more easily leveled out by a 20%+ tax difference.

However children is a completely different topic anyway as different countries have totally different ways of helping parents monetary here in Europe. Most people here in Switzerland wouldn't actually pay the full $25k out of their own pockets.

Why not full 25k?

Unless I misunderstood Poland has put some inconvenient regulations that discourage companies from allowing remote work. It requires a special contract otherwise you are compelled to go a number of days per month to work.

I work based on a standard labour law contract remotely and I’m not compelled to fulfil any quota of days worked from office.

Polish system is weird in that most people in IT create one-person companies and work on B2B contracts (and then there's no such restrictions in addition to tax benefits once you earn more than about 10 000 PLN per month which almost everybody in IT do).

There are other benefits you miss on tho (like lower retirement unless you opt-in to pay higher tax, no mandatory 26-day vacations per year unless you bargain for it with your company, etc.)

Olomouc is misplaced on the map, that's Switzerland, and not Czechia?

Plzen (another Czech city) is also shown in Germany.

That one has a line pointing to (approximately) the right position. Olomouc doesn't, though.

I see, I misinterpreted the line. It's just confusing overall, my first guess that Luxembourg (the other end of the line) is the label of the number 9, located in Munich.

Yeah, I agree, it would've been clearer if they'd placed the circles in the correct locations and then put the line between the circle and label. The ones in the Netherlands might've been too close together (with this circle size), though.

Weird seeing Oradea in a “top 10” list :)

Drop me a line if you ever visit.

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