In Russia it used to be “well, I earn X rubles gross, so I want to earn X rubles net if I accept your offer”. But this worked for two reasons:
– our income tax rate is 13%, so this amounts to a 15% raise
– inflation used to hover at around 7%, so getting a new job with a 15% raise every two years would just keep you afloat.
With higher tax rates and lower inflation in most of the EU I am sure the rules were quite different. But what about now? The inflation has hit 11%, has this changed how people are thinking about raises?
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Earning more money directly will likely not be a big aspect. Any earnings over I think about 42k/year are taxed at 50%. All of it rises with inflation automatically, both that 42k as well as the money you earn.
So if you earn over that and a person offers you more you’ll lose at least 50% of that gain anyway. My last raise I asked 300 net more a month. That will likely cost my employer over 1k/month.
Instead in my experience it’s going to be more about benefits. What company car, cellphone, laptop, vacation days, food money, etc. Basically things that are taxed less which is both more benificial for me as well as my employer.
Purely money there’s a real soft cap on income when one earns money being an employee basically. Hard for you to earn much more and incredibly expensive for employers to give you more.
So people use alternatives.
It’s basically accepted you’re not getting rich being an employee in Belgium though you can be very comfortable. Plenty of other ways to do so of course.
In my experience as a graduate, you usually aren’t expected to negotiate the salary because the opportunity is so rare to get a grad scheme you take it as long as it matches the city’s cost of living. For example if I was looking for work as a graduate in London, I would expect the salary to be attractive and make living in London affordable but this salary would be higher than if it would be another part of the country.
It greatly depends on my workplace.
If I absolutely hate it I’ll even consider leaving for the same salary or even a bit less.
If I’m indifferent or like it, then I’ll usually switch for €250+ more, but I never share my current salary with my potential new employer. This way I have more opportunity to negotiate.
This is absolutely not an average situation here, my profession pays an insane amount *compared to* the average salary.
Many people will leave a workplace that they’re satisfied with for €50 or so, and they don’t calculate with inflation in mind.
Salaries are very Eastern European here, getting as much as the minimum wage in Germany is considered well above average.
There’s is no rule of thumb. Everyone have their own preference or expectations. Some people are money driven and walk away when they have an offer at another company earning €100 per month more. But this isn’t the case for everyone. For young professionals opportunities to learn and grow might be more important. For people with kids they like when their employer is flexible. For example, I work from home 4 out of 5 days in the week. I really enjoy this because I don’t have to commute. I might earn more elsewhere but when I have to commute 3 hours a day I won’t be happy.
Everyone has their own I think.
For me the rules go as follow:
1. Am I unhappy enough with my job to disable Linkedin filter on my e-mail? If yes, I will take the median of the offers I get on my LinkedIn and will go with that, unless it’s lower than what I’m currently making.
2. If I’m happy with my job, 10% is the minimum raise I would need to consider a position, as in I will interview if I’m the right match. I’m always upfront about the fact that I’m happy with my position and if we like each other, it will be up to the money to make up my mind – the more the higher the chance I will move. It’s not always actually true, because I might like the stuff I’d be working on more, and that can offset the money gain, but I work for money first and foremost.
3. At around 30% raise vs my current job, you can have me looking at paint dry, I will take the job if they make an offer.
I don’t usually negotiate. When they ask me what I want to make, I tell them what I’m currently making and have them make me an offer. I say “no thanks, bye” if they try to low ball me, no second chances, and I’ve had recruiters beg me to change my mind. I don’t do that. If they don’t respect me from the start, I have no reasons to expect respect while I’m working for them.
I think it depends a lot, from person to person.
I guess some people will move just for a salary raise, but I don’t think that is the case for the majority.
Speaking for myself,I wouldn’t change job for 10% pay rise,nor 20%… probably not even 50% 😉
I earn enough for what I need.I like my colleagues, enjoy my job.I get long vacations and only work 4 days a week, with a 3 day weekend..all those things are more important than salary to me.
What inflation is right now should not honestly impact your salary negotiations. It’s high because of the current economic-political situation, but it will be a short-term thing that eventually passes. Long-term inflation is the more crucial one and whether that country has tools to maintain that long-term inflation at the target level.
In Finland, we have websites where people report their salary levels. It’s not super trustworthy, but maybe it gives some quick reference points. You can also look into more reputable sources, such as the national statistics bureau. Then adjust (+/-) your salary expectation depending on your education level and the amount of experience.
I would never do a ‘current earnings +x’ calculation.
I make a weighting with pros and cons with current work and look at
1. How hard and many hours I have to work
1a. Atmosphere & culture – I don’t want to work for a well paying but shitty employer.
1b. My boss should be a ‘good’ person I can relate to
2. What I get paid per hour worked/monthly and how this is compared to similar functions of same level
3. Bonus
4. Benefits in days off, other allowances, car, phones etc.
5. They should always be willing to negotiate with respect for you. If they don’t, screw their offer. It says something about their culture and mindset – transactional. They pay you to do as they told.
In the end I would not move for a significant improvement weighing all points. But in the end I calculate for salary not what I earn, but what I would be worth to them. This often gives you the insight that you can ask much more. At least for me it worked out great.
The list helped me say no to some (in hindsight) shitty employers and offers as well.
It depends on the type of job.
For some unskilled or low skilled position there is a mandatory minimum wage (adjusted for education and experience) that has to be followed. But it might be hard to get more than the minimum. This is for cleaning, farm work and different types of construction.
For most jobs, the wages are negotiated between unions of workers and unions of business owners (or different parts of the government). You will get a rise every year, but small. It might not be a lot to gain changing employers, but changing position will get you a raise. This is for industry workers, teachers, nurses, transport, police and many other professions.
The system is quite complex, making sure the prices of exported goods don’t rise too much, workers getting rises, making sure one sector does not make trouble for others and keeping the economy healthy.
For more academic positions, there is also local negotiations. The sum of the total rise is controlled by the central negotiations, but hard working and key people might get more than those that did less the last year. This is typical for academic positions in government.
Lastly you have positions where the worker and employer just negotiates with no external limits. Then you can earn more by changing employers. It is good to know what others get and what spesific skills you bring to the employer. This is typical in finance, leader positions, part of IT and other places in the private sector.
In general a lot of people look more at the benefits than at the salary. If I can get a job for the same salary but with better benefits I might take it.
And 11 percent inflation? We’d sign for that. At the moment we’re at 14.3 percent inflation here.
It heavily depends on your sector here in Germany. In IT it is quite common to hop around every few years and ask for quite large raises, meanwhile in the car and similar manufacturing sectors, most of the work is unionised and so most of the wages are quite similar, as the unions basically have collective agreements with the many companies about stuff like salary, wages, benefits and similar. So in the car industry, changing from e.g. VW to BMW or Porsche doesn’t really change your income or benefits that much, at least if you are in the lower levels.
And in many industries it is more or less somewhere between IT where massive raises are common and the car sector where everything is very similar. But generally, in Germany, switching jobs is often not that worth it just by pay. If you change your job, it is far more likely you do it because you get more benefits, the working hours are nicer, the distance to work is shorter, stuff like that (or just because the old work environment was cancer). And in many sectors, if you switch often, the interviewee will give you weird questions, as it is very common to just stay in one job for a decade or more in Germany.
It depends on the income. If you earn a low to medium salary, the only thing you care about is the %change. Some people want 20%, some 30%, some 100%. It’s all up to personal preference.
If you already have a high income, then the benefits may start to matter more: extra salaries each year, shares at the company as a sign up and retention bonus, private healthcare and childcare benefits, permanent work from home, stuff like this