Life in Germany
There is still quite a lot of time to play in Germany, why so much time to play around? I am an employee of a company, and now I am working in a local German company. I have to work five days a week, which is my own spare time.
I just calculated that last year it was 166 days. There are 365 days in a year, 52 weeks, two days are weekends, 52 times 2, which is 104, right? This is the same for all of us, and then comes 30 days of paid annual leave. 30 working days do not include weekends.
German labor law requires at least 20 days of paid annual leave per year, but 30 days is a general market norm, and you can’t recruit people in Germany if you only give 20 days according to the lower limit of the law. Sports employees, especially the kind of positions that require shift work, such as workers on production lines and sanitation workers who sweep the streets, have a lot of annual leave, usually 35 days.
My employment contract says that the working hours are 37 hours per week, but I visa application hong kong 41 hours and four hours of overtime per week. That is 16 hours per month. There is no overtime pay for overtime, but every minute you work overtime will be credited to your working time account.
Our company’s own requirement is that we can take five overtime hours out of the account each month and convert them into money to be credited to my supplemental pension. But each month, only a maximum of five hours can be taken out, so the rest must be used up in time for vacation, which is equivalent to 1.5 days of vacation per month, which is 18 days a year. If you have more than 60 hours of overtime accumulated in your time account and you have not taken your vacation, the HR department will talk to you.
According to German pay law, six weeks of paid sick leave per year, which is the full amount for all employees, is 11.2 days of sick leave for the average German in 2021. Last year I only took six days off, so I was a model worker. By the way, if you are sick, you get six weeks of sick leave, but if you have a sick child or a sick family member, you also get family care leave, which is counted independently. In the case of children, for example, each child gets 30 days of paid child sick leave per year, 60 days for divorced families, and 90% of net profits if you can’t work because of caring for a sick child.
After that, there are the holidays. In Germany, each state is different, some of them have 10 days, some have 11 and some have 12 days, but in Germany there is no such thing as a holiday transfer, for example, January 1st this year just in time for Saturday. So, the real holiday can be rested probably we even eight days it.
To sum up, 104 days of weekends, 30 days of paid annual leave, 18 days of overtime annual leave, six days of sick leave, and eight days of holidays, so I have 166 days of spare time.
This is not an example, but a general intensity of work in the German workplace, manual laborers, such as workers on the assembly line, his specific rest time is actually more than mine.
But is the income in Germany high? Germany’s income is not really high, taxes are high, social security and health insurance payments account for a very high percentage of the money is actually not much, but working fewer hours, there are good and bad.
Germany, is a more stable society, so that the new emergence of such opportunities in society is not too much. Subsequently, the Germans are more conservative and traditional, focusing on logic and process, and they are more strict.
What kind of people are suitable to work in Germany? It is the kind of honest, steady, meticulous, frank and straightforward work, if there is something to say, there is work to do. Do well and then go home. Not to go, do not want to engage in too many interpersonal contacts, but also more afraid of annoyance, to do a good job, take the money home, wife and children hot bed, this kind of people are more suitable to come to Germany.
However, if a person is very ambitious, he wants to be promoted, wants power, wants to be in charge of others, or wants to make a lot of money, for example, like this nothing to create a business this kind of thing in Germany is difficult.
Because Germany, first, his society is more conservative, this kind of new opportunities are particularly small, the new pit is particularly small, you want to insert the carrot can not be inserted. The second is the German people, you as a foreigner, in Germany, the resources and interpersonal relationships are particularly small, right? You want to get others’ approval, you will be promoted to the first or second level, naturally than the national is a little more difficult, because you have the language and culture of the innate shortcomings, even if you have no shortcomings in this area, you have to prove that others are strong, you have to do 20% to 30% more than others to get the same approval.
In other words, if you want to be innovative, to change your destiny, to soar to great heights, to be noticed by everyone, it is not very suitable for you to come to Germany, but if you want to work seriously and honestly, if you want to be a regular worker, this type of personality is more suitable for you to go to Germany.
The prerequisite for coming to Germany is that you should have the key skills required by the Germans, as the Germans do not look at your soft power too much, right? You have to look at your hard skills, for foreign immigrants, the Germans look at the hard skills, that is, you have to have confirmation. What doctor’s license, nurse’s license, lawyer’s license, this kind of thing is the German people more convinced you, and then your communication and language communication is no problem.
He needs to be able to work people, is to be able to engage in people, here to be more difficult, is to want a more stable life of well. In fact, Germany itself is a more stable, you want to live such a life can be. If you want to make a big fortune, there are few opportunities.
And the whole system of the society here is to protect these small people, that is. That is, he has many rights, many systems to manage out to protect the rights of the small people like you, such as the law of the guild. And then the culture of the society is like this.
In Germany, there is a wide variety of taxes, such as VAT, personal tax, capital gains tax, land transaction tax and so on. In fact, we are closely related to the piece of personal tax, then Germany is known as a high welfare country, he has a huge perfect social welfare protection mechanism, but his taxation is truly outrageous.
The first thing to say about their starting point is that it is relatively low, with an annual income of more than 9,100 euros. After that, his average income should be more than 3,000 euros.
In Germany, you have to pay tax when you reach 23% of your average income, so many high welfare countries really take from the people and use it for the people.
So the government in your personal body to get this revenue, you really do not dare to think. His a personal tax, plus the usual and we are closely related to a, for example, you want to buy a house, a land transaction tax. And you that energy tax, is we use electricity in Europe is also to pay taxes, these taxes together can reach more than 28 billion of this revenue, so their financial results are particularly rich, then they levy up this money is to apply some public utilities, such as some social welfare ah, medical pension ah, education this piece.
After that, they actually have a more surprising, is that they have a “single tax” is really special high, yes, you heard right single is required to pay taxes, that belongs to the world ranked second single tax is very high in our country, ranked first is Denmark. Then they also have a heavy tax, that is, a wealth tax, that is, when your income reaches more than 100,000 euros, then you have to pay 45% of a tax, that is, if you are single, and then you are earnings reached nearly 100,000 words, then you pay this tax is really great, in fact, I feel that the hand is simply to cut half of the words.
So I think in fact in Germany still enjoy some egalitarianism, there is a kind of big pot of rice feeling, if you are very upward, and is very to pursue a self-made development, and is very much thinking about earning money for the purpose, in fact I think it may let you down, so here is the feeling of many people lazy.
Then, because of their tax bracket, I just have six taxes, working in Germany, you will see a gross income and a net profit, the net profit is the real money in your hands, sometimes the gross income is very high, but will be based on your tax bracket, from all aspects, how much you will eventually achieve.
So it also depends on which level you belong to, for example, you expect to earn a lot of money, a salary increase, or an extra job, in fact, once the tax comes up, you really do not have much in hand.
Therefore, I now feel that Germany does not suit my character, because I want to increase my salary, not to go abroad is to earn a lot of money, if abroad is suitable for retirement, then I go before the age of forty-five on the line, why do you need to go to more than twenty years old.
I am now in Germany for eight years, about to immigrate to the United States, to see if you can go to the United States to earn big money. The United States really can not, you can only return to the country, after all, the most basic point, the domestic overtime can also earn more.