Question For Europeans

[girlx]

I'm not sure either though I don't believe there are many IAs in the Netherlands. I think it has to do with the company I would work for having specialized in what the clients need for their projects.

by the way, final interview tomorrow. i'll let you know how it all turns out.

Edited May 20, 2008 by girlx

[mattias33]

what do you mean? can i live comfortably in europe on that and even save some cash? assuming i go out on weekends and the occasional weeknight, and maybe a bi-weekly shopping splurge. the dollar is pretty low so i am not sure...

Many EU workers survive on 12000 euros per year - fact

Honestly i find that "fact" very hard to beleive.

Maybe in budapest or prague, but not a chans in london,stockholm or helsinki.....

And besides "surviving" might not be equal to "live comfortably" that girlx asked about.

[NordicMan]

what do you mean? can i live comfortably in europe on that and even save some cash? assuming i go out on weekends and the occasional weeknight, and maybe a bi-weekly shopping splurge. the dollar is pretty low so i am not sure...

Many EU workers survive on 12000 euros per year - fact

Honestly i find that "fact" very hard to beleive.

Maybe in budapest or prague, but not a chans in london,stockholm or helsinki.....

And besides "surviving" might not be equal to "live comfortably" that girlx asked about.

Food for thought:

a "fact" that is easy to verify is that the majority of EU population does indeed not live in London, Stockholm and/or Helsinki.

Of the 495 million EU citizens, Italy has 60mill, Spain 45mill, Poland 38mill etc.

Even Romania has 21 million - 3 times more than the population of London. What do you think the average salary in Romania is?

If you can find out the average EU salary, please let us know - would be interesting to know.

cheers

NM

[thaihome]

You all seem to miss the whole point of being a working expat. The “average wage” for the country an expat is working in means nothing. What does mean something is that you are getting comparable pay and benefits to your home country for that job, you get a nice premium on top of that for working overseas, your housing and transportation expenses (including mobilization/demobilization and annual home leaves) are covered, if it is a high cost country you should get an allowance that protects you from excessive living expenses, and you are protected from double taxation.

If you are not getting all that, what's the point of working overseas?

TH

[girlx]

In the end I decided to stay here and continue working freelance, because by my 5th interview with these people they annoyed the crap out of me, and the thought of going back to working 9-5 in an office full of middle Americans (even if it is in Amsterdam) and giving up my freedom was just too much.

[thaihome]

Probably a good choice. Working with Americans surrounded by Dutch would not be my ideal place either.

TH

[NordicMan]

You all seem to miss the whole point of being a working expat. The “average wage” for the country an expat is working in means nothing. What does mean something is that you are getting comparable pay and benefits to your home country for that job, you get a nice premium on top of that for working overseas, your housing and transportation expenses (including mobilization/demobilization and annual home leaves) are covered, if it is a high cost country you should get an allowance that protects you from excessive living expenses, and you are protected from double taxation.

If you are not getting all that, what's the point of working overseas?

TH

i agree with you to some extent, but a large proportion of people working overseas are not "working expats". they are simply working in another country.

e.g. I work in shipping and there is a very high proportion of foreigners in my office in London. Only a very few of them are on any kind of expat deals. Everyone else are just on local british terms, including myself. In my current team of 7 people, we are from 7 different countries, only 1 is British, and none of us are on expat terms.

whether you get a great expat deal or not also depends a lot on which country you're going to - i believe that if you are going to western europe, your chance of getting an expat deal is much less than if you go from western europe to a developing country.

i guess a fundamental question is whether girlx is (was) looking for a lucrative expat deal, or if she's merely considering working in another country. that will determine whether one require all those benefits in order to accept the offer.

There can be many reasons to work in another country without expat terms - for me, one reason is that my thai wife does not like living in my home country, and she has much better employment opportunities in London than where I come from. I also like living here better than back home.

cheers

nm

[Amsterdam]

I have not read the whole discussion but I did notice that you decided not to come to Amsterdam!! Even though it is to late here is my advice if you where to come here.

1- ask for the 30% tax ruling (this will exclude 30% of your income from tax)

2- ask them to set you up in an apartment for 6 months while looking for your own place

3- 1 bedroom apartment will cost you about €1000 a month

4- €60K is hard to figure out if that is a good salary since I don’t know your work experience but it sounds ok.

I personally think that depending on how you live you could save between €10K and €15K a year that is THB 500K to 750K

Now Amsterdam is a fun place to live and very international but trust me I prefer Thailand.

Good choice to stay there

[samran]

I have not read the whole discussion but I did notice that you decided not to come to Amsterdam!! Even though it is to late here is my advice if you where to come here.

1- ask for the 30% tax ruling (this will exclude 30% of your income from tax)

2- ask them to set you up in an apartment for 6 months while looking for your own place

3- 1 bedroom apartment will cost you about €1000 a month

4- €60K is hard to figure out if that is a good salary since I don’t know your work experience but it sounds ok.

I personally think that depending on how you live you could save between €10K and €15K a year that is THB 500K to 750K

Now Amsterdam is a fun place to live and very international but trust me I prefer Thailand.

Good choice to stay there

don't think she ended up getting the job, Amsterdam...

[Amsterdam]

I have not read the whole discussion but I did notice that you decided not to come to Amsterdam!! Even though it is to late here is my advice if you where to come here.

1- ask for the 30% tax ruling (this will exclude 30% of your income from tax)

2- ask them to set you up in an apartment for 6 months while looking for your own place

3- 1 bedroom apartment will cost you about €1000 a month

4- €60K is hard to figure out if that is a good salary since I don't know your work experience but it sounds ok.

I personally think that depending on how you live you could save between €10K and €15K a year that is THB 500K to 750K

Now Amsterdam is a fun place to live and very international but trust me I prefer Thailand.

Good choice to stay there

don't think she ended up getting the job, Amsterdam...

I know I mentioned something to that effect in the first and last sentence.

Cheers

[thaihome]

You all seem to miss the whole point of being a working expat. The “average wage” for the country an expat is working in means nothing. What does mean something is that you are getting comparable pay and benefits to your home country for that job, you get a nice premium on top of that for working overseas, your housing and transportation expenses (including mobilization/demobilization and annual home leaves) are covered, if it is a high cost country you should get an allowance that protects you from excessive living expenses, and you are protected from double taxation.

If you are not getting all that, what's the point of working overseas?

TH

i agree with you to some extent, but a large proportion of people working overseas are not "working expats". they are simply working in another country.

e.g. I work in shipping and there is a very high proportion of foreigners in my office in London. Only a very few of them are on any kind of expat deals. Everyone else are just on local british terms, including myself. In my current team of 7 people, we are from 7 different countries, only 1 is British, and none of us are on expat terms.

whether you get a great expat deal or not also depends a lot on which country you're going to - i believe that if you are going to western europe, your chance of getting an expat deal is much less than if you go from western europe to a developing country.

i guess a fundamental question is whether girlx is (was) looking for a lucrative expat deal, or if she's merely considering working in another country. that will determine whether one require all those benefits in order to accept the offer.

There can be many reasons to work in another country without expat terms - for me, one reason is that my thai wife does not like living in my home country, and she has much better employment opportunities in London than where I come from. I also like living here better than back home.

cheers

nm

All very good points but it depends on your industry. In the Oil & Gas construction business, you [should] get a package, even in Western countries...

TH