So I'm subscribed to the jobs.perl.org mailing list. This is very important to every Perl programmer regardless of whether or not you're looking for work. You want to know who's hiring. You want to know the technologies they're using (Catalyst is really hot right now) and you want to know what they're paying. You might even want to know where they're hiring, but this is less important to me.
What's curious, though, is an odd little discrepancy I noticed. I tend not to read job postings in German or Dutch because, well, I don't know those languages. I read the English language jobs (and the very uncommon French language ones). I've noticed that the vast majority of jobs posted in the UK or Australia have a salary or salary range listed. The vast majority of those posted for the US don't. What gives? Are Americans just a bunch of cheating bastards seeing who we can swindle?
Re:Cheating Bastards?
emdee on 2005-11-10T06:16:40
P.S... Catalyst IS hot. Really hot.Re:Cheating Bastards?
mary.poppins on 2005-11-10T15:02:08
Regardless of payroll taxes, companies will always try to pay their workers as little as possible. That is the most straightforward way to increase profits, after all.
Also, I must be misunderstanding your post in some way, because you seem to suggest that taxes are lower in the UK than in the US.Re:Cheating Bastards?
Ovid on 2005-11-10T16:52:42
I don't think that's what was meant. In the US, our taxes are so mind-bogglingly complicated that no two tax experts get the same result on a moderately complicated return. Companies who hire people still have to deal with a bunch of little, niggling taxes being calculated, deducted from the paycheck and sent 'round to the proper offices. Right now I'm subject to withholding for federal, social security (which the employer pays half of), medicare and state taxes. If you think of medical insurance as a tax, then there's that, too. (There are also "county" taxes where I live and some companies will withhold those at the request of the employee).
So there are tons of little deductions which have to be calculated and managed separately for each employee. That winds up being a lot of overhead. On top of that, years ago, when I was manager for an espresso company, I quickly discovered that all of our employees were costing us roughly double their hourly wage due to the taxes the company had to pay for them and all of the insurance funds we had to pay into but they didn't (such as unemployment, workers compensation, and so on). That's a bunch of extra overhead on top of all of the taxes we had to calculate and withhold.
I'd be curious to hear a comparison with what goes on in the UK or other countries.
Re:It's like a whole different country there!
drhyde on 2005-11-11T09:54:48
While the company may advertise the sort of salary they are expecting to pay, that is as negotiable as the rest of the contract. On several occasions I have got more out of them.
As to why US employers don't advertise salaries, I have no idea. It seems daft to me. Advertising the salary is a great way of getting inappropriate candidates to filter themselves out quickly and easily without having to rely on the opaque rubbish written by HR drones. And both sides benefit. By including the salary, they are more likely to get a small selection of well-suited people to choose from instead of wasting their time fielding enquiries and interviewing people who are too expensive or not good enough.
