So I’m experiencing a touch of culture shock here.
And consider that you’re still talking about the AngloAmerican world. If British salaries shocked you like that, do I want to know what you think about Greek ones? When I first started working (just after getting my master’s degree and completing my standard year of military conscription) my yearly salary was about 14.000 euro, after taxes.
In Slovakia a high school teacher receives 600 € / month, before taxes. To get above 1200 € / month, one has to be a manager, financial specialist, IT specialist, etc. On the other hand, we get 25 paid vacation days.
Sure, we need to be careful not to compare apples with oranges. For example, do people receive free healthcare for their taxes? This may be difficult to evaluate, for example in Slovakia there is a nominally free health care, but sometimes one has to pay some additional costs, or pay for higher quality or sooner treatment, and it can get pretty expensive. Also the tax system is complicated (income tax, property tax, value added tax, special taxes, mandatory insurances, tax for having an employee, media tax, etc.) -- I suppose this is intentional to prevent average people from finding out how much exactly do they pay.
The hours worked by a US worker (+- 1800 a year) is lower than the hours worked by Greeks (about 2100 a year), and higher than those of the UK (approximately 1650 hours a year). Only the Koreans work more hours a year than Greeks, so the amount of hours put in is not very relevant to the yearly salary.
And consider that you’re still talking about the AngloAmerican world. If British salaries shocked you like that, do I want to know what you think about Greek ones? When I first started working (just after getting my master’s degree and completing my standard year of military conscription) my yearly salary was about 14.000 euro, after taxes.
In Slovakia a high school teacher receives 600 € / month, before taxes. To get above 1200 € / month, one has to be a manager, financial specialist, IT specialist, etc. On the other hand, we get 25 paid vacation days.
Sure, we need to be careful not to compare apples with oranges. For example, do people receive free healthcare for their taxes? This may be difficult to evaluate, for example in Slovakia there is a nominally free health care, but sometimes one has to pay some additional costs, or pay for higher quality or sooner treatment, and it can get pretty expensive. Also the tax system is complicated (income tax, property tax, value added tax, special taxes, mandatory insurances, tax for having an employee, media tax, etc.) -- I suppose this is intentional to prevent average people from finding out how much exactly do they pay.
(Data source, unfortunately in Slovak only.)
Let’s make sure we’re comparing apples to apples here.
Mandatory paid vacation days, by country
US—None.
UK -- 20 (not counting public holidays, again for apples-apples purposes)
Greece -- 20 and up, depending on seniority
The average US worker works a lot more hours than the average UK or Greek worker does.
The hours worked by a US worker (+- 1800 a year) is lower than the hours worked by Greeks (about 2100 a year), and higher than those of the UK (approximately 1650 hours a year). Only the Koreans work more hours a year than Greeks, so the amount of hours put in is not very relevant to the yearly salary.
source: OECD statistics