Thread: Europe Economy/Jobs

Please fill me in on some basic info relative to many European employers.... (not in Greece and places suffering, etc)

Average annual salary
Growing/Demanded Professions
Vacation time immediately instead of after 6mo or 1yr (like in US) correct?

Other things to know, consider, watch out for, etc. Of course I realize this is broad, but would appreciate insight. Mainly in Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey.
For instance, no income tax paid in most Middle Eastern countries like Dubai, etc. Thx!!

Europe is a relatively big place.
What languages do you speak ?
It can severely limit your choices here

Originally Posted by LTL

Europe is a relatively big place.
What languages do you speak ?
It can severely limit your choices here

you really need to start posting like a normal person.

You are asking for a pretty much broad answer right here. But I can certainly say if you are qualified, have the knowledge and will to work, you can find a good job anywhere. But you need to understand that pretty much all of the things that are going for US can be relative to Europe as well.

Maybe the best thing we have here is health insurance, pension plans and things like that. But there are more taxes, gas prices are much higher, but that all depends on where you wanna go. Somewhere it's cheaper to own your own flat/house, somewhere it's cheaper to rent. For example owning the same car in Finland, Denmark, Germany and Austria is not the same. But at the same time, prices of food, daily expenses can vary quite a bit.

Pretty much everywhere you won't get vacation time until you've worked there for 6 or 12 months, that's like the practice almost in every country that I had info or experience with.

As for the taxes, that's a bit tricky! All depending on what you earn, on what type of work contract you work on, how the government taxes your income (does your employer pay the health insurance and income tax or you yourself), what are the rates and such.

For example, Croatia can have income tax that is from 13% - 45% all depending on what you earn. We have 23% Value Added Tax, while Germany has 18%, France has 19% while at the same time, Switzerland has only 8% VAT for example. But you will pay 45.5% income tax over there.

It all depends on a bunch of things, where you live, what are the local taxes, in Germany you have federal and local taxes, where you gotta take into account that the social security paid by the employer also goes into the income amount.

It's pretty much the same, but if you want to earn money and live a normal life, head for the Western European countries. Maybe you can earn more money more quickly on the Eastern Europe but you will loose your sanity with the laws, corruption, bureaucracy and things that have no common sense.

I think the most important part would be (at least for Germany) => You mostly make less money and have to pay more compared to the States from what I've heard so far.

Compared to Germany the States are a paradise when it comes to everything. Everything is just so ridiculously cheap, it's not even funny anymore. Cars, food, insurance, rent, houses in general, clothes and so on and forth. I could imagine that it'll be tough for someone coming from the States to make a living over here. And taxes. Let's not even get into that.

Annual salary, well, you should be a little bit more specific. This could range from €30,000 ($43,000) to €55,000 ($80,000) coming out of university. The 30k would be in the Marketing department and the 55k would be in consulting with a higher degree. But I guess it's the same as in the States. You'll make the fastest and most money (if we speak about a regular career) in Finance & Consulting. You could definitely reach the €100k ($145k) mark turning 30.

I'd only recommend someone in the area of Engineering, Biotech or Finance/Consulting to head over to Germany.
Oh and don't even think about heading over to Turkey or Spain if you want to make some money and not go completely insane. I might be looking into renting an apartment in Valencia by next year and I love it's beautiful to live her, but a huge fuckin pain in the ass to get work done. IMO: Make money in the States, enjoy life in Europe (South of France, Spain).

^Kuester nails it down again.

Income tax here in Germany ranges from 48% (single, no children) down to below 20% with children and a wife.

6 months no vacation unless you know the right guys or have a significant excuse...

19% VAT on everything but food (7%). When you're self- employed, you can write anything off though. To be honest, you can write off pretty much if you're self-employed, just gotta know how...

Specialists are urgently needed in the pharmaceutical engineering branch and the upcoming alternative energy production field. maybe you've heard, that we want to be nuclear power plant free until 2022. You're not doing anything wrong in, like kuester said, the financial branch, too.

Salary is quite a broader thing... Generally you can consider, that small companys pay less, so do companies with a small amount of specialists. So focus on bigger employers, and stay in the suburbs of a larger city.

Living is quite a thing, too... Get a house in a rural area wont cost you much, so does the living in general, but be prepared to waste the money saved there for fuel etc. But if you're planning to come over for less than 5- 10yrs or so, just rent something like 30mins out of a bigger town and you will profit from cheap rents and living, nature (not that bad in germany) and just half an hour driving.

Originally Posted by ddigangi

you really need to start posting like a normal person.

If you insist but i'm keeping the blue

thx guys !!!

Hi jpohl402,

Please see the site below. It has many reports of minimum salary or average salary in EU and Europe. Everything is in pdf. so I could not attach it here.

This site is from Eurostat so you can not get more acurate data for Europe than that.
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/…

Hope it helps!

Originally Posted by jpohl402

Growing/Demanded Professions

If you move to a country where you cannot speak the native language, then the tourist industry is the best bet, resteraunts hotels etc. I think that would apply more to the southern countries as without speaking the language its not easy to find other work. There is always real estate too, and I think they like to have english speaking employees.
I would really advise you to think of the job that suits you rather than suiting the country. Then if it is something that you have the possibility to move abroad with, great, but think of your long-term future first.