Work in Germany. 5 Reasons.

Germany has some of the strictest labour laws in Europe. The country has gone to great lengths to try to ensure that workers rights are enshrined in law. This makes it a particularly attractive place to live and work in.

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“Bildungsurlaub” / educational vacation is limited to 5 days per work-year, but you can combine the educational days of two years to a total of 10 days. In most cases you will have to book a surveyed course to profitize on this regulation. Sick leave with payment through your employer is limited to 7 weeks, after that you will receive “Krankengeld / sick-leave-payment” through your health-insurance which is only 70% of your salary.”

“There are laws for everything. I work for myself. Imagine you earn 200k in a year. More than 40% is going to the gouverment. You also have to pay more for health insurance if you earn more. Same thing with investments like rental objects. And 1000 other things. And now? Energy, food almost everything is getting more expensive. life was good a few years ago.”

Why Americans Are Moving to Germany for Work

Looking at how Germany and the USA treat types of “leave”, there is one universal truth: whereas Germany sees it as a basic human right, America sees it as a commercial bargaining chip… and the statistics in this video schocked us.

Looking at our contracts, our employment in Germany is so much more humane – with a work-culture that guarantees vacation time, maternity leave, sick leave, parental leave and more for all full-time workers.

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“I think it is important to note that the benefits we enjoy in germany did not just fall from the heavens, but they are the results of many decades of struggle by the workers movement. Do not take these things for granted! Join the union and vote for worker-friendly parties.”

“Before every American now starts to look for a job in Germany, keep in mind, that this is not uniquely German. Nearly all European countries have similar regulations like Germany, sometimes a little less, sometimes even significantly better.”

“When I had my first baby, I was working in retail for a cosmetics company in Germany. They had to provide a chair and stretcher for me to sit/ lie down at all times. I wasn’t allowed to carry anything heavy and after 22 weeks of pregnancy wasn’t allowed to work standing up for more than 4 hours a day. At every doctor’s appointment, my OBGyn would ask me if I was still ok working or if they should give me a Beschäftigungsverbot (a kind of mandatory medical leave), which is fairly common in the last few months of pregnancy, especially for jobs that can be physically straining.”

Do Germans really have work-life balance?

It’s common to hear that Germans are great at switching off once their working hours are done, but according to a new survey, this may not be entirely true.

The survey commissioned by Novotel surveyed around 5,000 adults across Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Poland to investigate their habits and working schedules. Surprisingly enough, it found that the Germans have the worst work-life balance of all four countries, with 58 percent work and only 42 percent leisure time.

Working hours. Holidays. And more.

A key issue for many workers is flexible working time in order to have a work-life balance. Negotiating a work/life balance can help enable parents (both men and women) to reconcile their work with their family lives and women in particular to participate in the labour market.

Finding the right work-life balance can allow workers to take leave from work so that they can participate in education or training or take up an interest, hobby or leisure pursuit. This may mean that employees can reorganise their working lives and hours around shorter days, weeks, months or years.

German families tend to be small with only one or two children. The men are still quite often considered to be the head of the household, even though both the wife and husband work.

Job security with a good work-life balance

Classic factors of employee motivation continue to play an important role. A new study shows that every second employee attaches great importance to a secure job. However, only around a third of those surveyed are willing to make sacrifices for this.

Job security is an important motivating factor for every second employee: 52 percent of women and 58 percent of men attach great importance to it, according to the results of the study “The future of work: A journey to 2022”. For the study, the consulting company PWC asked around 2,000 employees in Germany about their ideas about the future of work, 46 percent of whom were male and 54 percent female.

According to the study, however, only around a third of those surveyed are willing to sacrifice their work-life balance for a secure job: 36 percent of the male and only 32 percent of the female respondents say they would be permanent for the prospect of a secure job available to your employer.