Some young American workers are moving to Europe in hopes of a healthier and happier life.
25 years I’ve been abroad (The Netherlands) and the work-life balance is why I stayed. They insist I take days off (still foolishly work like an American) and have already booked out a 3 week vacation for later in the year…and I’ll still have nearly 2 weeks of vacation left. We can roll a few weeks of vacation over to the next year if not used. Even though the Dutch have NO holidays from June to Christmas, I’m still able to take 4 day weekends when I want to.
The downside is family left behind may begin to resent you. My family have developed this red-hat victim culture. I can’t bring up how I live abroad or else it starts fights - they don’t want to talk to me now.
Same with the resentment! Lots of people in the US don’t want to hear how much better it is elsewhere. GrEaTesT NaTiOn oN eArTh!
It’s funny, because if you’re living in the US and bringing up topics (like e.g. healthcare, parental leave, vacation time, sick days, the school system, universal access to universities and higher education, traffic deaths, gun violence, etc. etc. etc.) the reaction is often “well, if you hate it so much, why don’t you just leave?”
And then, when you actually leave and live a much more enjoyable and happy life elsewhere, the reaction is “we don’t want to hear about it!!!”
They didn’t want to hear about it in the first place ;)
Sometimes you just have to make the changes you can. For me, it was time to go - I wanted to see more of the world, to work and explore and see life differently. My family wanted something different: solidity, family, planting themselves. I needed to explore. We both got what we needed.
I also moved to the Netherlands recently (but from Germany) and their holiday schedule feels really weird to me. You get a lot from April to June and then nothing until Christmas. They should’ve spaced that out better.
You do know that most public holidays are based on christian events right? Spacing those out is only possible if we separate those days from religion.
The statuary minimum holiday entitlement of 20 days (most employers give 25+) can be used freely.
Heh, even here in the home of Christianity we have multiple secular holidays: liberation day, workers’ day, republic day, ferragosto …
Cool thing is, you can even make up holidays if you want!
looks like you should stop talking to that family of yours
Too late. They stopped taking to me.
Why the resentment though? Is it because they’re thinking that they had it terrible and therefore you should too? That you’re not a loyal worker and therefore less of a person because of that?
Or can it be that they feel left behind and you talking about how great it is to them sounds like you don’t miss them or regret moving away?
I tried not to parade the differences around, but there would inevitably be issues with any comparisons made. I’m a Democrat, and they are very Republican; this last president has made things very hard. It’s also possibly just simple envy - my father suggested it when he was still with us all - and I’ve tried to keep in touch and be there for children’s birthdays, etc, but now they just turn away. Or just convienent: now 25 years later, I think the friends are more family that actual family.
Seriously been considering moving the family to the Netherlands or Sweden.
Lived in a few places in Europe over the years. Currently in Canada, which is slowly sliding into being a hellhole like America. 😓
I’ll be retiring soon and move to Asia with the wife. We’ll leave the light on for ya… 👍
Thanks. Where abouts in Asia? Had a friend retire in Singapore and they’ve been loving it.
Close by - have an Indonesian wife I met here and we’re looking at land in Bali.
My family is really gonna hate me now.
America becoming a third world country.
As an American who has been abroad for many years, can confirm! I’m visiting the states at the moment and its crazy to hear a family member talking about trying to convince their boss that the employees should get five paid sick days a year instead of only three. Three! A year! Insane.
sick days even
Five!!!
insane
Last year was super shitty, I had COVID twice and Shingles with nerve pains, I’ve been on sick leave for more than a month over the year, it would have been a disaster without socialized healthcare and workers’ insurance
If only they would leave their political affiliations and a few bad bits of their culture in the US too, that’d be great. They’re otherwise very welcome here, as is anybody else who wants to embrace the European lifestyle and integrate, Iranian, Afghan, Australian, Kenyan, Brazilian, Turkish, whatever.
A lady I work with in the Netherlands sent me an email Friday. I responded and got an OOTO message saying she’s out till 7/31
Definitely jealous
I’m in Asia and receive OOTO emails all the time, meanwhile we work even during holidays 🙃. A co worker is a Chilean, and during her 3 weeks leave to go back home after years of not taking any leave, she worked day and night, slept only 3 hours the whole stay. We Asians were successfully brainwashed into the hustle culture
It’s a thing I like about Germans. They tend to be more strict about working hours than other EU countries, let alone somewhere like America.
I worked in the Netherlands for a while, and we’d get loads of German visitors. When we were nearing closing time, we’d often have German visitors going “It’s his ‘Feierabend’(end of day). He can’t help you anymore”. Especially when they had a problem that would last till after closing time to solve. And then when you told them “no, no. It’s fine.” they were genuinely grateful. They didn’t expect you to work, when you were no longer being paid to.
You shift starts. You work. Your shift ends. You are no longer working.
The unsurprising result: experts often say German workers outperform American workers. Turns out strictly enforcing working hours, allowing workers to recuperate when they’re not on shift, means they end up working harder when they are on shift.
I worked for the US division of a German company and found that the culture even for the US workers was very respectful of time off and appropriate working hours. I hated the job because I was customer facing and our customers were typically large US companies, but the German company was a great company to work for.
Damn, isn’t 8 years a bit much?
Muss gerade an diesen Bericht von kürzlich denken, ebenfalls vom glorreichen Business Insider:
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-germany-relocation-american-move-disappointing-2023-6
Lustiger Kontrast.
Was für ein dämlicher Artikel. Wäh, wäh, ich wohne in einem kleinen Dorf und habe nicht Zugang zu allen Modern conveniences wie in einer grossen Stadt. Wäääh… Echt, jetzt?
Generell lustiger Artikel, danke.
as an European I have to say:
please stop advertising this, they will all come here with their American dreams and turn Europe in USA.
I’m yet to see two of them actually connecting the dots between the “American dream” and the horrible labor laws. They want the wellbeing we have but they also want the rampant capitalism, they think “socialism == communism”
American here - this stuff is actually widely known and accepted among our progressives, who are the people most likely by far to leave.
We just get fucked out of political power at the federal level by the outsized representation of small-population, rural, die-hard-conservative states. For example if the presidency was by popular vote we likely wouldn’t have had a Republican president since 93 which would have made the supreme court liberal by 8-1.
At the most fundamental level, the US political system just wasn’t built to handle the increasing rural/urban population disparity, and at some point things will need to change. What that change looks like is anybody’s guess. One scenario is that with the economic failure of the backwaters, plus the housing crisis and additional automation, it becomes economically feasible to just build/buy enough housing in the backwaters to be able to have a controlling share in the vote. Which obviously sucks in a lot of ways but it might be the solution with the lowest barrier to entry.
That’s a weird take on the subject, most American I’ve met or worked with where surprised but happy about our ways.
We might have met totally different kinds of people.
I wouldn’t worry too much about that. The most reactionary people in the US, those who think socialism is communism and horrible labor laws are “freedom,” are too heavily indoctrinated into their own little death cult. They honestly believe there is no country more free than the US and are genuinely fearful of the idea of living anywhere else, they would never move to Europe.
People who live in reality, on the other hand, see how horrible it has become in the US and are looking for a real “land of opportunity,” where you do not have to be a willing slave to capital in order to have the right to the basic necessities of life. They are fully disillusioned with the “American dream,” and so are more open-minded toward socialism, and are more willing to agree that maybe most countries in Europe provide them with real, actual freedom far more that what they have living in the US.
This has been my experience with immigrants from the US, anyways (and, full disclosure, I am an immigrant as well, just not in Europe).
Clumping 332 million people together and expecting that they’re all the exact same.
Come on, buddy.
I’d do it if I could afford it or was younger. Honestly wish I had. The sacrifice now, with family and kids, is too massive.
If you understand that the high salary is to meet the high cost of living in the United States then you’ll understand that it isn’t a pay cut. Take that one step further and consider the fact that the higher cost of living does NOT come with a higher quality of life in the US.
If I had the money, I’d be running for Europe right now. America has gone to shit and it is only going to get worse from here
The paperwork and logistics is going to be a bitch, but if you can start looking for a job in Europe from your current location, the move itself might be less expansive than you expect.
See, that’s the thing. I’m in film and my goal is to parlay this work into a work visa in Europe for this exact reason. I love my work, but I want benefits and protections that just aren’t afforded me here (because my particular Union in my area is problematic as fuck, not to mention hard to break into). But my concern is how this even gets done.
The US has made it very difficult for citizens of other countries to get paperwork to live and work here, so we see a lot of reciprocation in level of difficulty to leave this place. I wish I could get someone to give me some info on the process that’s been through it
Be aware that a lot of US studios love to shoot in Germany, because our unions in the film business are non existent and they can shoot longer and pay less in Germany.
Don’t worry. It’s also going to shit on this side of the pond.
It seems to be going to shit in most of the world these days. The fight for freedom and against consolation of power is a never-ending fight.
The future still seems better in western/northern Europe than the US.
IDK, does the salary deficit makes up for it?
look at it this way, necessities in USA are largely out of reach (health care, education, housing, funded retirement) and luxaries are easy to come by (phones, sneakers, branded clothing, streaming etc).
Whereas in Europe, the necessities are much more attainable for the population at any income bracket. Do you have much more “free cash”? No. Do you need it? No, you have a social safety net.
Even vacas in Europe are cheaper bc for an American to travel to Europe is very expensive by means of airplane. In Europe you can take a high speed train and be in any climate.
On the topic of trains, Public transit is more efficient there than it is to drive cars in the states. Imagine not having to buy a ~$30k car every 10 years? Not to mention fuel and maintain it.
And only the poor and/or uneducated will stay behind. The USA is going down fast.
I don’t think that’s really true. The US is still the largest economy and attracts many educated and highly skilled people in the tech sector.
Certain parts are declining for sure, but I don’t think that applies to the whole country.
Bad take. There aren’t droves of people leaving the U.S.
High skilled immigration to the U.S is still big. Hell, its a problem for European tech companies, as their best engineers get poached by the U.S.
Might be a surprising take for some, but Europeans still move to the U.S today. Not in the droves of the 20th century, but still an amount. 12% of all immigrants to the U.S are from Europe in 2021.
That’s not immigration, those Europeans generally don’t move to the US to stay. The US are a place to make lots of money while your’re young, who the hell would want to fund a family or grow old there: The wages might be high, but to get an equivalent level of social security and general quality of life none of it would be left.
Can confirm. Made the painful decision to move back to Europe because we wouldn’t have been able to afford the kid’s studies, growing old and sick with no retirement and so on
I think it depends. I’m a software dev in the U.S. I have talked to many developers in Europe who feel like they are stuck, and are making a pittance compared to what they make in the U.S. If you were to talk to one of these people, they would be providing a different perspective than what you are telling me right now. And it turns out, moving is hard no matter where you are from.
Personally, I’ve crunched the numbers. Even with social benefits, moving to Europe for me would be a mistake.
Btw, I know multiple European families in the U.S. They aren’t all just here temporarily. Not everyone just keeps moving on a whim.
I’m one of the immigrant families lol.
