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Google layoffs: Sundar Pichai-led company fires entire Python team for ‘cheaper labour’ (www.hindustantimes.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Google layoffs: The company plans to set up a new team in Munich, Germany which would act as "cheaper" labour, the report claimed.

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[–] 51 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Compared to Valley workers, Germans are still cheap. 100k is a very very good salary over here.

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  • [–] 45 points 2 years ago

    When you have a much better social safety net, work-life balance and in general can expect to be treated like a human and not a work-battery to be used up and discarded, people are satisfied with much less money.

    Should they maybe instead just try that in the US? Nah, of course not.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, but you still have to pay social taxes on top for every worker. That's why salary and labour cost are two different things. And boy is it a difference in Germany.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And as far as I've been led to believe, workers in the USA will be bullied into not taking any time off. Germans will take their entitled holidays and use sick leave when they are sick.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Workers in the US may not even have sick time. They do make more money though, probably because lots of European tech workers come to the US for better pay.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    In practice anyone with this salary is likely to have at least 2 weeks + 10 or so federal holidays. It's the retail and factory folks who are hurt most there.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Vacation time is not sick time. If you want any type of vacation at all, you need to plan ahead of time. Offering only 2 weeks is a joke. If you get sick one day, you lose one week of vacation.

    Monitoring and rationing sick time is like limiting bathroom breaks or coffee time. if your job does it, you have a crappy employer.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If you get sick one day, you lose one week of vacation.

    I have never worked anywhere in the United States with a policy like that. It may be your experience but it's certainly not the norm.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Pretty sure they are saying that if you have 10 days PTO and you use one of them when sick, you no longer get a full two weeks' vacation as you'll have an uncovered day. With a full 10 days, I could clock out Friday evening, get on a flight to my vacation destination, catch a return flight the afternoon of the 19th and be back to work on the 20th. With only 9, I either need to work until next Monday and get on the plane that night, or cut my vacation short to fly back in the 16th and work the 17th. You effectively lose up to 3 whole days of downtime on vacation for being unable to work due to illness once a year.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Compared to Valley workers, Germans are still cheap.

    So is West Virginia or Oklahoma.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    True, but you also need to get enough people with the right skills/knowledge who want to live in West Virginia or Oklahoma when those same skills and knowledge likely make them highly employable in markets with more amenities and greater job opportunities without needing to uproot their life and move to a new town/city when the time comes to get a job with a new company.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    If only there was a way to, like, have workers work on things without having to be anywhere near the office. Like distance workers or something, then you could hire people from all over the country in cheap places! Ah well, we need that face time though! ~Executives

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    But salary does not equal labour cost.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Even doubling the salary is far less than what you'd pay in the US, and as a rule of thumb, German labour, including all the indirect costs, is about twice the gross salary.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Even doubling the salary is far less than what you’d pay in the US,

    I'm certain there's plenty of Python programmers available in the United States for less than $200,000 per year.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    These python programmers are literally maintainers of the language. They're not a dime a dozen. Not saying it's impossible or anything but you're looking to get very high caliber engineers for under 140k

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