[HN Gopher] European Remote Worker Index
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European Remote Worker Index
Author : NKosmatos
Score : 37 points
Date : 2024-01-13 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.brother.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.brother.co.uk)
| NKosmatos wrote:
| This article/post was circulated by many news sites in Greece and
| created a lot of discussions.
|
| I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed, but I can understand
| the ranking based on various data. For people interested, Greece
| is quite nice for remote working, with many nice places to
| live/work/enjoy.
| guillermoscript wrote:
| could you give more details ?
| stavros wrote:
| I live in Thessaloniki, and the weather is always great
| (maybe too great, we haven't had almost any rain this year,
| due to climate change), the city has a vibrant night life,
| great restaurants, a fairly good variety of things to do, is
| very bicycle-friendly if you live near the waterfront,
| relatively cheap, etc.
|
| It has its downsides, but I really can't believe it's one of
| the worst for remote workers.
| raverbashing wrote:
| One of my pet peeves is the description of "great weather"
|
| What's great weather for some is literal hell on earth for
| some other person
| stavros wrote:
| Well, you know, sunny and pleasant six months of the
| year, rainy for three, boiling alive for three.
| foobarian wrote:
| > boiling alive for three.
|
| I don't believe you. That would imply the involvement of
| water :-) Isn't it more like roasting over a bed of hot
| coals
| stavros wrote:
| Oh no, it's very humid.
| seydor wrote:
| As a remote worker you have to deal with an arbitrary and
| dysfunctional state and bureaucracy. Also international
| schools, healthcare and safety matter to workers, as opposed to
| tourists
| irusensei wrote:
| Unless I misunderstood Poland has put some inconvenient
| regulations that discourage companies from allowing remote work.
| It requires a special contract otherwise you are compelled to go
| a number of days per month to work.
| GrumpySloth wrote:
| I work based on a standard labour law contract remotely and I'm
| not compelled to fulfil any quota of days worked from office.
| ajuc wrote:
| Polish system is weird in that most people in IT create one-
| person companies and work on B2B contracts (and then there's no
| such restrictions in addition to tax benefits once you earn
| more than about 10 000 PLN per month which almost everybody in
| IT do).
|
| There are other benefits you miss on tho (like lower retirement
| unless you opt-in to pay higher tax, no mandatory 26-day
| vacations per year unless you bargain for it with your company,
| etc.)
| tcmb wrote:
| The weather doesn't seem to have been a criterion, does it? If I
| think about places in Europe where I would like to live and work
| remotely, I'm thinking Portugal, Spain, Italy. Certainly not
| Luxembourg, Denamrk, Netherlands and Iceland...
|
| Also, I've been to Luxembourg myself, and the people I met there
| were drawing a Luxembourg salary but living across the border in
| France, because real estate is just much, much cheaper there.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I'm based in Portugal, and found it ridiculous it wasn't
| mentioned in any category.
| MrDresden wrote:
| Spent dome time in Peniche last year working remote. Loved it
| and highly recommend.
| chefandy wrote:
| Seems weird. I don't know anyone that lived in Portugal that
| didn't love it. Maybe the authors were from way up north and
| consider summers that don't even frost over once to be
| stiflingly hot. Personally, I consider the percentage of the
| year I need protective clothing to safely go outdoors a big
| factor for happiness.
| tcmb wrote:
| Olomouc is misplaced on the map, that's Switzerland, and not
| Czechia?
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Plzen (another Czech city) is also shown in Germany.
| twiss wrote:
| That one has a line pointing to (approximately) the right
| position. Olomouc doesn't, though.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I see, I misinterpreted the line. It's just confusing
| overall, my first guess that Luxembourg (the other end of
| the line) is the label of the number 9, located in Munich.
| twiss wrote:
| Yeah, I agree, it would've been clearer if they'd placed
| the circles in the correct locations and then put the
| line between the circle and label. The ones in the
| Netherlands might've been too close together (with this
| circle size), though.
| inertiatic wrote:
| The fact that the stats that drive this could be weighted in any
| arbitrary way makes the overall rankings pretty worthless in my
| eyes. And looking at the top 10 vs bottom 10 kind of validates
| these thoughts. I would much rather live in most of the bottom
| ten than in the top ten, if we're talking long term.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| IMO this is seriously flawed.
|
| Any index like this where Berlin or Barcelona or Switzerland or
| any other city/country with a mature tech ecosystem (or a very
| nice weathe, why not?) are missing from the top spots is
| basically useless.
|
| For example: nobody in Europe ever talks about Luxembourg and
| AFAIK even less when talking about working remotely.
|
| It might be attractive in principle, as the richest country in
| Europe with the highest average salary or for being at the center
| of continental Europe, but it's hardly a destination people dream
| about.
|
| Reykjavik too, been there a few times, it's not the place you
| want to go spend a long time working remotely, unless you are
| Icelandic.
|
| It's simply too small and isolated.
|
| I would not bring.my family to live there just to work remotely.
| Blahah wrote:
| To be fair, if you make life decisions based on listicles on
| the website of a printer manufacturer, you might love living in
| Luxembourg. And if you're white, middle class, and hate having
| interesting experiences.
|
| For everyone else there's Berlin, Lisbon, Prague, Milan,
| Copenhagen... Essentially every exquisite city in Europe is
| missing from the list.
| petre wrote:
| I remembers a Bulgarian who was working for the EU told me
| Luxembourg was crazy boring and she was happy that the EU
| bureaucracy moved her (and some other _second class_ East
| European employees) to another city in Eastern Europe.
|
| Milan, no. Crazy expensive. Bergamo, yes. Prague, full of
| tourists. Plzen or Brno, better. Lisbon, same. Berlin has
| shitty broadband and it takes forever to get it hooked up.
| I'd much rather work in Bavaria or Baden-Wurttemberg.
| gumballindie wrote:
| > Barcelona
|
| Last time I was there beaches were swamped by drug dealers and
| the city by pickpockets. Berlin is not as bad but it's not
| great either. Wouldnt recommend them to anyone.
| j7ake wrote:
| The "happiness" index is not applicable to remote workers.
| Happiness index is essentially measured by asking locals how
| happy they are. This has nothing to do with whether an outsider
| (e.g. an American) would become happier if they moved to that
| country. It is more of a cultural indicator of how they approach
| and view life. Countries where the culture is to complain a lot
| get a 'low' happiness index (e.g. France and Italy), while people
| who are are pragmatic and rarely complain get a 'high' happiness
| index (e.g. Denmark).
|
| Asking locals how happy they are has little information whether
| an outsider would be happy living there.
|
| Just an example: Dutch people are very happy living in the
| Netherlands. But someone who is used to living in a city with
| good restaurants and good weather will absolutely hate the
| Netherlands. Biking is not fun when it's windy and rainy outside,
| but Dutch people don't mind it because they think it's normal.
| Dutch people also don't care about food as much as Italians (a
| thick piece of bread with a thin piece of slice is a lunch), and
| the stark difference in quality of restaurants between
| Netherlands and Italy shows this.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I love the way you describe dutch lunches - _a thin piece of
| slice_. I will use this in the future to refer to lackluster
| food.
| j7ake wrote:
| It was a typo, but happy that it worked out as imagery.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| what is the original word?
| twiss wrote:
| Stereotypically, probably "thin slice of cheese" :)
| alkonaut wrote:
| This question should be rephrased using objective metrics. It's
| still a difficult metric but at least it wouldn't merely
| measure cultural or even linguistic quirks.
|
| Ask how many worry about their health, losing their jobs,
| crime, money, how many feel they have enough and fulfilling
| free time, trust their neighbors and so on.
| stavros wrote:
| This tracks, I live in Thessaloniki and it's a fantastic city
| to live in (relatively, anyway) if you're not making a Greek
| salary.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Just an example: Dutch people are very happy living in the
| Netherlands.
|
| Is that so? I had the impression that impression that a far-
| right politician, Geert Wilders, won the last elections in the
| Netherlands precisely because people in the Netherlands were,
| for a very big part, not happy at all with the state of thing?
| twiss wrote:
| One of the big issues in the election was cost and
| availability of housing. I think most Dutch people are happy
| to live in the Netherlands (and want to keep living there),
| but are unhappy that it's getting so expensive, and worry
| things will get worse with the growing population and limited
| space (and construction not keeping up), which led to some
| anti-immigration feelings (unfortunately).
|
| More concretely, I know plenty of people who would like to
| live in Amsterdam (or more centrally), but were forced to
| live in the outskirts or neighboring cities due to cost -
| while central Amsterdam is increasingly filled by expats and
| tourists. The mayor is trying to counteract this and keep
| Amsterdam for "Amsterdammers", but that's difficult, of
| course. I presume similar issues exist in other Dutch cities.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _The mayor is trying to counteract this and keep
| Amsterdam for "Amsterdammers", but that's difficult, of
| course. I presume similar issues exist in other cities._
|
| Housing costs are always an issue but I haven't heard of
| any issues with Helsinki being "filled by expats and
| tourists". Perhaps it's because it's a relatively small
| city, the person seeking to move to Finland doesn't want to
| be in an urban environment or people just aren't moving in
| at all.
|
| Really, the only place "filled with tourists" is Lapland,
| where at one point you might hear more Chinese around town
| than Finnish.
| twiss wrote:
| Sorry, I meant other Dutch cities (edited). The tourists
| part might be specific to Amsterdam but afaik there are
| plenty of expats in Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht, etc.
| as well.
| petre wrote:
| They're not happy with tax, healthcare, cost of living,
| immigration.
| intunderflow wrote:
| I live in Aarhus and its pretty good here, but I do think the
| lack of international airports nearby can make things pretty
| painful for remote folks who plan to visit other countries and
| family abroad. The nearest airport (Billund) is at least 90
| minutes away.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| I "love" Brother for their printers, but please stick to that.
|
| This list is as random and arbitrary as someone wiping their ass
| and produce an equivalent list.
|
| The only saving grace is the context: it's the UK site so maybe
| it's tailored for those people but I still have my doubts.
| politelemon wrote:
| Methodology should also include broadband availability and
| reliability.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Methodology should also include broadband availability and
| reliability.
|
| I live on the country n 1 on that list: Luxembourg. 100% fiber
| optic coverage across the whole country (OK, it's not a big
| country, but there's fiber everywhere).
| seydor wrote:
| Is the list for americans? Wouldn't remote workers do a little
| bit of location arbitrage? Who in their right mind would choose
| to live in Luxembourg since even the people who are forced to
| work there choose to live elsewhere
| f6v wrote:
| Living in Aarhus and Aalborg will only make you happy if you have
| roots in Denmark. I can't imagine anyone having a good life
| moving there to do remote work from other country. You're going
| to have zero social contact and the quality of services for the
| money is just meh. As others have pointed, the rating is
| meaningless.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Here's what my ideal remote working city would look like:
|
| - Cheap.
|
| - Nice, clean, pleasant, pedestrian-oriented public spaces with
| good architecture.
|
| - Lively but not too over-crowded, not full of tourists.
|
| - Nice nature nearby.
|
| Something like cheap Luzern (or any Swiss city with a population
| above 20k) basically.
| bjornsing wrote:
| Don't forget: manageable bureaucracy and reasonable tax system.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Taxes? Education? No way to review all stats. Very useless as is,
| but a better article on the same topic would be highly
| appreciated.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I live in Sweden and work remote. I'm actually thinking about
| moving somewhere else. but my top concern is taxes, which doesn't
| seem to included in this comparison.
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(page generated 2024-01-13 23:02 UTC)