@Brett Tarpley yeah, anyone with a 40 work week gets the 30 paid vacation days here. Only you work less hours or a „mini job“ it is less vacation days.
@Brett Tarpley Overtime is kind of weird here. I had a job, where overtime was not paid out and you could just take it of either. But it was strongly discouraged to accumulate overtime and if you did you would have a talk with managers to make a plan to get rid of the overtime. At my current job it's not paid either, but I can just take days off to get rid of my overtime.
@Brett Tarpley what do you mean? Often the budget is quite strict, so employers don't want unexpected chances in compensation they have to pay, so overtime is discouraged. What do you mean by not very ambitious?
As an employee of a global corporation based in the US I have visited the German factories of some of our vendors. The technicians in these factories are highly trained, disciplined and well compensated. The amount of quality work they produce in those 35 hours is astounding.
@@swarles354 I'll write in in German: Dann solltest du vielleicht mal nachverhandeln. Wir haben zwar nur 20 gesetzlich vorgeschriebene Arbeitstage, aber 28 Tage bei 40h/Woche ist arg wenig. Ich kenne in meinem Umfeld keine Person, die nur 28 Tage bei einer Vollzeit-Stelle haben, außer sie haben extrem schlecht verhandelt.
My husband collected so much overtime hours he has taken the whole of december off. A colleague of his took 2 months off to travel around Asia. I love Germany.
But they don’t pay you 1.5? You have to take the days off? What if you want to work hard to save money for a goal? I work overtime to make $$$ not get days off.
One of the reasons why Walmart failed in Germany was because the German government deemed Walmart's working conditions inhumane. Germans who had initially worked there quit soon after starting because of the company's atmosphere and after that Walmart struggled to replace the employees.
In production environments it is common to have officially 36 or 38 hour work weeks where you actually work 40 hours and build up 13 to 26 extra vacation days.
Wait till Americans know that there are paid sick days in Germany and your doctor can write it in your prescription accordingly so that you can take time off to get healthier. It will blow their minds :P
you need to tell them as well that the sick days are not limited and you don't have to plan them in advance! they are as long as you are sick. if the doctor says you are sick for 2 months - you will be on PAID sick leave for 2 months and the company cannot fire you for that.
After 2 Months your income will drop to 800 Eur sice your income must then be payed by the healthcare insurance company…. so not exactly socialism but a little bit like socialism … depending on what you define as socialism… 😅
that is not exactly correct in germany. after 6 weeks of being on sick leave the income will be up to 90% of your normal income, and paid by the health insurance instead of your employer. this will continue for up to 72 weeks (1,5years). after the 78th week of sickness this will end - but after more than 1,5years of sickness you might have the right for a reduced earning capacity pension as you might still be sick but unable to work anymore. Or you might get back to work on a reduced work time (as a colleague of mine did, battling cancer and still having to earn money for the family)@@meadowlark8197
Junge hä? Nur weil du 40h/week arbeitest heisst micht dad ganz Deutschland so is. 35 ist der durchschnitt, wir gehen sogar immer weiter runter in den letzten Jahren. Das ist auch gut und schlau so. Wenn du 40h/week arbeitest bist du eh zu dumm oder zu schlau.
@@Siegmernes that goes both ways then, though. Your boss can also tell you "in 3 month's time you will work only 35h... and with 12.5% less salary of course, too"
Is it though? I mean in the netherlands the standard at my job is 38h+2 meaning we work 40h weeks but every week you basically earn an extra 2h off but its calculate ahead of time for the whole year like normal time off.
Meanwhile Netherlands; yea you can work up to 60h But you will be taxed way more than bilioners? Why? Cuz you work more of course! It means you can earn more!
And it depends on your contract if you get paid for those hours. In most cases the hospitals would be financially ruined if the whole overtime would be paid. And when you want to take a day off in lieu you can't do it because there is too much work and somebody needs to do it or someone is ill...
When he says, he negotiated so well, he is not entirely wrong. Just that the German worker-grandparents did that job for him. All working achievements were fought for by workers! ❤
The legal minimum of vacation in Germany is calculated 2 days per month, so 24 days of vacation per year. A lot of companies offer 30 days, but they wouldn't need to.
I get 5 days of vacation per year. I had to work a year at the company to get that. Once I complete my second year than I get 10 days of vacation per year. To get 15 days of vacation per year I would have to stay with the company for 10 years. They do not offer more than that. One employee has been there for 20 years, and they would not give him another week of vacation when he asked for it. I think in the United States no vacation time is required but some jobs offer it. Before at my last job I never got vacation. I worked there for 5 years. Also, they did not pay you when you were off for holidays. At least at my current job we get paid holidays. I believe there is like 10 paid holidays a year. Christmas, Christmas Eve, New Years etc.
Just to clarify the minimum paid vacation is 20 days although a lot of companies give 30 but certainly not all , but still better than in the USA I guess .
@@AG-cj7im in Germany ? No . By law for a 5 days workweek the minimum is 20 days , nothing there about work experience or educational level . Disabled employees are entitled to 5 additional.
@@AG-cj7im nope. The minimum is 20 days / year for a 5 day work week. If you work more or less than that, which means 6 days/week max as one rest day per week is mandatory, the amount of minimum vacation gets adjusted accordingly, as long as you stay within the 4 weeks / year. Most companies are doing 24 for a 5 day work week anyways and voluntarly agree to increase the vacation days by 2 every 2 years the employee stays in the company till 30 days max. But that is not required by law and it is mostly due to the fact that it's better to give you more vacation and keep you as an employee than looking for a new one, which is a pain in the back for both employer and employee.
Lol my mom has worked at her company for 30+years and typed out at 28 days vacation.... it took her 25 years to accumulate that .... year one you get 4 days
@@laraleo6412 Yeah I know it's a little bit of "overexplaining", but the thing is, as an American, it is so genuinely frustrating to see how ignorant most people around me are to just how badly they're getting screwed over. If I stay with my current company, it could take me decades to even come close to receiving the same benefits that a Danish mcdonald employee receives from day 1. If I lose my job and need to go to the hospital the very next day, it could put me into lifelong debt, because hey you no longer have health insurance. It's just amazing because if anyone I knew got an offer like this, I'd say they must've got really lucky, whereas in Germany that's "the bare minimum" (aka they could do better if they tried). It's so frustrating to live in a country that can't even provide the baseline support for its citizens, but too many people are drunk off American exceptionalism and cold war propaganda, to realize how royally fucked over they're getting.
Even after decades of experience and service. Just wait until you get to the age of 60, and, older. The closer you get to around that age of 60. You will start hearing that more "experienced" workers have more potential, costly accidents. Notice no mention of age. Anything happens at all, out the door you go. Mostly due to supervisor claims that you are not productive. This is a very subjective opinion of your supervisor. Think you can get a lawyer and sue. Good luck with that.
Yeah but according to „salary transparency“ many people in the US get 120k+ yearly salaries, which you really cant expect in Germany. You are already pretty good if you get 60k a year. I watched those videos from the US and was shocked to find out that even fresh graduates make at least 80k. Everything comes at a price I guess.
As someone from Portugal same here 40/35 hours contract... Paid Vacations.. is Standart here in most European countries, also if you are sick no problem...
You just have to hope that they don’t “negotiate” you into unemployment by demanding so much that the business is no longer profitable for the owners. Unions are a good thing by and large, but when they get too uppity they can sink entire industries.
To be completely honest, I have experience with working 50, 40 and 35 hours. I would say I was about as productive during those 35 hours as during the 50 hours. When you work 35 hours or less, you can put in full effort during those hours. But once you have to work more than 6-7 hours a day, you will have to spread and conserve your energy. If you give a 100% for 40-50 hours a week, you will eventually crash. Might happen in a month, it might take years, but it will happen.
The worst thing is to ask for a week off and have to burn all 6 days, since you work Monday to Saturday, not to mention the Mexico has less than 10 holidays in a year 🤮
I work in IT as an Admin in a small company. In some months I worked 50-60h per week. The time was added to my time account but I could almost never take those hours or days off. Small companies don't have anything to do with unions and generally suck. But outside the big cities you can't easily find a better job unless you have a total common mainstream job. I'll finally leave this year. I hate it when delusional people portray Germany as some kind of paradise, although many struggle and suffer.
Well, I am German and live in Germany. At my last job I was asked how many hours I wanted to work and I answered "37,5 to 40 hours a week". I then got to decide myself and chose 37,5 hours because that was I was used to as full time. Turned out that every full-time employee worked 40 hours a week (25 days vacation per year), so I was officially only part-time. I would love the 35 hour full-time job from the clip.
The IG Methal union has negotiated that a 28-hour contract will be considered full-time if there is a good reason for it, such as childcare or elderly care, etc. Normally, however, a 35-hour contract is full-time.
As I German I can tell you that 35hrs a week is not very common over here. Most ppl work 40hrs/week. And overtimes are not paid/taken off in lots of sectors..
Germany is a country I admire a lot, I'm Italian and we're among the countries who work the most hours a week yet produce half of what Germany does, per hour. Working a lot badly is not worth it but it's such a hard truth to swallow for most companies.
I am Austrian and a friend in the metal/electricity industry was for some months in Italy. I don't know where or why he had done it. He said, everything was to repair because nothing or many things didn't work correctly. He was here to learn and did for three months repairs. Toskana, it was in the south I remember right know. When you have all day to fix something or the machines didn't run correctly, you can't be efficient and produce high numbers. Less money off course and so did grow the rat tail. It's the A and O that the machines are well oiled, the workers are highly skilled and they have the right tools for sure. Also for the managment, when they don't let things repair or keep the factory on the bare minimum, it's go down, fast very fast.
Long hours usually translates into reduced efficiency and productivity. There's been lots of research confirming this. Having people work more than 30 hrs a week is literally irrational.
Fellow German here: You're lucky to get such a job. Most companies, especially small ones, don't have to follow any special rules that give you benefits like that. I never had a 35h week or a lot of vacation days.
@@emoveo1 what are you talking about, there is no socialism in Russia at all. Some Western/Northern European countries have more socialism these days.
The moment someone tries to touch them, half of the country manages to yell communism in unison, which is kinda creepy and totally not a sign of communism.. Anyway, even people who are suffering under this system are happily voting for their oppressors there, because there are just 2 parties and they do not want to vote for the other party whatsoever. Its the perfect democratic oppression, that's why those two parties do not want other parties.
paid overtime is a tool to coerce workers into willingly getting exploited. you will never get that time back, not with any money. some companies let you take the time off at a later time and still keep the .5 bonus, which is ideal imo
@@lorep7412 , living expenses are half too , plus it's in the middle of Europe, you can travel to all countries easily, and also it's very safe compared to that shithole usa safety , you will get tons of benefits for tax u pay , unlike usa which will bomb 💣 country
@@lovesChicago But what about for ordering food, talking with friends, speaking to emergency services, using public transport, going to the cinema, etc.?
It really depends on the company. Six months ago I started a new (office) job. 30 hours a week, with more income than I had at my last full time job, 30 days vacation, lunch coupons for a nearby restaurant, once every month there's a fun company brunch in our fancy conference lounge during office hours (the last one was themed Oktoberfest) etc. They have to offer something these days to get good employees.
I'm from Germany and this is only in companys with unions. Also 30 days of vacation ist not the standard. But beside of this I love watching your Videos 😂
Same here in America, I was looking up jobs for a steam fitter, one was union, 35 hour work weeks, 60$ an hour. 30 days of paid vacation. Almost all well paid blue collar jobs are like this. If it’s not union, you will eat shit, at least over here.
Only if you work fulltime tho. Depending on the job (and where you life) you can actually afford to only work part time so 90 hours a month maximum. A colleage of mine and her husband both only work 90 hour a month and get by very very easily !
I have 40h per week but I get 30 days paid vacation and have the right to take 1 day off per month if I have worked the hours in overtime. So basically I have 42 days off + public holidays every year and any additional overtime is compensated with a 125% payout. Also my company puts in a lot of additional ressources to further increase my qualifications.
Well some parts but there are legal requirements for all employers if you have a full-time job I'm not sure what they are for Germany tho as I'm Austrian
As others pointed out, it's not quite like that. But, here you also get basically unlimited sick days (even though after 6 weeks you only get like 2/3 of your salary). I heard that this is not the case in all non-European countries.
30 days vacation is 4 weeks..In the US it takes probably 2 years minimum to grt this.. Honestly 50 hours is what most people want or need to make ends meet...in the Midwest u need at least 24/hour to live comfortably
@@winterlinde5395 wow...that's great ...my last job u got 3 weeks after 8 years and you had to take full weeks at a time. You got up to 5 weeks after 15 years.We Americans have let the puppet masters take our lives for the sake of a few extra dollars because the excessive hours kill productivity and morale
@@stratospekos well there is almost no job in Germany having a standard 6 days work week. Since most companies are union organized (or the overall industry is) there is at least to my knowledge no standard 6 day week. It might be possible but would be a rate exception. And let us not forget the 13 National holidays and the fact that you get your vacation days back if you fall sick during vacation.
@@toomflussiggrillanzunderfu8828 Ich weiß nicht ob das gemeint war, aber beispielsweise bekommen ehrenamtliche Pfadfinderleiter, Fußballtrainer für Kinder usw zusätzliche Urlaubstage um beispielsweise mit den Kindern weg zu fahren.
I love gleitzeit i have 30 paid vacation days but with my Gleitzeit i easily reach 50 vacation days a year 😂 + since my main job is to maintain the factory I work sometimes Saturdays too ( from 6-12 but the way it gets paid is just bonkers 6-8 normal pay 8- end +50% payment)
I worked at a security company as a student, weekends mostly. Saturdays were paid +50% and Sundays +100€. Tax free. I think this is by law but I’m not sure.
@@XBOkiXD at my company I can choose between extra time or extra payment like you mentioned it but I'm an apprentice at the moment so taking the money isn't really worth it
I work 39 hours monday to friday, weekend work paid 150% per hour, every overtime hour is collected 11 months and i get it on top of my december pay check, 30 days paid vacation, 2 weeks paid education vacation which is just vacation with your colleges every year and if i didnt took my 30 days vacation i can bring it to next year and "could" spend full 60 work days off in the next year, i dont have to work the last week of december and the first of january. Besides that there are like 10 extra paid days off work by law (christmas, Halloween and so on)
Yes and no. Your employer pays half your insurance premium. If you don't have an employer you have to pay both halfs. (On social welfare the welfare agency pays the premium)
75?! That would be impossible in my native Hungary. Per the law, we can work 48 per week at max on average, unless a "collective agreement" between the workers and the company says otherwise, but anything over 60 is unheard of, and 60 is extremely rare, with a tremendous turnover rate.
The U.K. has even more statutory paid holiday. Germanys is 20 days, ours if 28 days, but most places pay bank holidays too, so we basically get 32 days paid leave a year.
The agency I work for provides the option of pay or comp time (deferred time off) at 1.5x hourly rate. So, anything over eight hours in a day or forty hours in a week is paid overtime or deferred time off. Pretty sweet for a US employer.
German here: What's shown in video it's only half the story. Yes, Arbeitnehmerrechte (employees rights) are more favorable to workers in Germany than in many other countries. However, of course, you have to be productive and valuable to your employer to justify the costs you are producing. it is expected, for instance, that a skilled worker is flexible in his vacation planning. Employees in team leader roles and levels above normally work far more hours than the standard 35 without extra or overtime pay. Also, there's a tendency to hire people on short-term contracts for simple tasks paying only minimum wages and hardly any extra perks.
I really hoped that ending came. A lot of us Americans don’t understand the importance of taking time off. Reviving yourself for further productivity. I had a German teacher who wouldn’t let us forget it and I’m glad he didn’t.
The average German works ca 1300 hours per year. The average US American works ca 1700 hours per year. The standard of living is largely the same, Germans enjoy much more financial security. The difference does go somewhere. US Americans are getting screwed.
@@RoonMian While the numbers may show only slight differences having a societal expectation for a “sunnier disposition” (albeit still slight and extremely nuanced) has a much larger effect than most give it credit for. It’s like the opposite of a lot of gang or dealer mentalities of “if they carry (fire-arms) so should I.”
@@RoonMian It’s all perspective though, I see as kind of a manifest destiny thing. Not taking thing for as they are and for what they could be. Just not the whole stealing of land, people, and lives.
@@beverlycrowell_ Lirerally almost every single American you ask. The most common counterargument is "at will employment also means that you can quit anytime!", which is kinda laughable in light of the fact that most Americans have a loan or a mortgage to repay...
In Switzerland 4 weeks are the minimum. Until the age of the 20 - 5 weeks 20 - 49 yo - 4 weeks 50 - 59 yo - 5 weeks 60 - 65+ - 6 weeks Most firms give 5 weeks though
My Dad recently took a 3 Months Vacation. 30 regular Vacation days and with leftover Overwork hours from last year he managed to squeeze in another 40 Days from Overtime Hours. Enough to cover all of January, February and most of March.
@@stellastella99 nah work weeks are 5 days. Do if you have 30 days of vacation its actually 6 weeks. Do you have 42 days of vacation? So 8 weeks and 2 days?
40h is normal, especially self employed people often work more. But I think everyone who worked a low payed job with a lot of hours knows that the more hours you work the less productive it will be. Working less for the same monthly salary can be beneficial to the company. Before going to college I worked 45h for 9,5€ (minimum salary that year). Every day I started with clocking in and taking a 20 min shit. After quitting for college they told me I was their most productive and competent worker among the other students.
Because German law essentially gouges their own companies of labor instead of allowing negotiations which benefit more competent and competitive workers.
You should come to Switzerland 😄 legal minimum requirement is 20 days paid vacation (that's just counting weekdays, because you're required to have two days off per week, so 20 days means a full 4 weeks) and the minimum wage for most office jobs is 3600 francs a month (before insurance deductions)
Well in India my best friend is working in a private company for 12 hours a day and 6 days a week...so 40 hours in a week is just a dream...also she gets no extra pay for overtime
I got a consultant job offer in Germany and the contract says 40h/week, but I read online that 45h is the typical working week. But well, it's consulting, at least that's not 75h/week like what you might expect in firms like McKinsey and you still have to worry about up or out
Don't forget that in Germany you generally earn less than in the US. I know 3 Americans who live in Germany and they were shocked how much less they earn per year in the same job. But again our high taxes are the reason we have such a good health care system etc.
Yes you earn way less and pay way more in various taxes but if you compare the quality of life in the USA versus any country in Western Europe, USA is a shithole country for the average laborers.
@@Jillberto Well only in things that have to sk with health. The rest is on the same level. For Example let's say you pay for a small 3 room flat 1200 USD. You pay the same in Germany, but you're income is much lower. So 50-70% of your income just got vaporized for rent. And on things like Groceries, Germany is even more expensive than the US.
@@ftKomA if you pay 50%-70% of your income for rent, you are doing a lot of things wrong. Also, rent varies a lot in Germany. For 3 bedrooms 1200€ is quite a lot, but "normal" for bigger cities where you actually earn more money aswell. You can live a good life in germany with 60k a year. The taxes you pay are also calculated by your yearly income, a single mother wont pay as much taxes as someone who lives alone with no kids and an income of over 100k a year. Eitherway, the average living expenses in germany are around 40% less compared to the US.
For me as a German, that's so cute. By the way, it's not so easy for people who need to work in shifts, but a lot of people try to improve this conditions too and it gets better. For example in many hospitals and nursing homes the nurses don't need to work longer than 7 days before two days off.
@@winterlinde5395 it means that once I work 40 hours, every hour I work after that, I get paid 1.5x the amount I got paid for the first 40 hours. So if my base pay is $20 an hour, but I work for 45 hours every week, then that extra five hours, I get paid $30 an hour. It's a great way to make extra money, and I regularly aim for overtime hours.
Well...my contract says I have a 38,5 hour work week but during the main season (march to november) I often end up working 10 hours each day and end up with a lot of overtime. But whenever possible (meaning enough of my colleagues are working) I can take days off to reduce those hours I worked extra since it is all digitally recorded how many hours I did extra. Last week a colleague of mine got pretty much a week off work randomly to reduce his hours.
This used to be how America was too, except then a ton of robots had kids and told them to suck up, take internships, and just say yes instead of negotiating the terms of their employment.
@@maxkessler1922 Absolutely not. The same situation goes for education, healthcare, housing, infrastructure, etc. The USA pretends to be "The Best" but they treat their citizens the worst of all developed nations.
@@maxkessler1922 we, the US, spend our taxes on people.....just not the US citizens, we send our taxpayer dollars to places like Pakistan, Chad, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Bolivia, India, Ukraine, Iran to really help the people there.
