Working in USA vs The Netherlands: 12 Biggest Differences

I decided to take a 50 pay cut to work in the Netherlands but somehow I feel happier that was my big dilemma after finishing my master's program in the Netherlands do I want to stay in the Netherlands and try to find work and see what happens or do I want to go back to the US and make a lot more money well four years later I'm still here in the Netherlands and in this video I want to share with you my experience as an American expat working in the Netherlands when it comes to our culture work identity job security salary benefits burnout and much much more and before diving in it's important to have contact so here's a bit about myself I currently work in HR for an international I.T company in Amsterdam but before that I come from California I studied business economics at UCLA and I worked in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley doing Finance Consulting design with startup companies and big corporates such as KPMG Universal Studios Apple Amazon and you see what I just did there name drop it's a very American thing to do to name drop that I don't notice as often in the Netherlands which leads me to my first point so what do you do a big part of your identity in the US is tied to where you go to school the job that you do and the company that you work for the let me explain because it starts at a very young age the U.S education system is a trillion dollar industry and we learn at a very young age to equate success in life with where you go to school college I'm going to Harvard the job that you do I'm a manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin and now with social media it's become an even bigger thing where you go to college just got into Harvard there's no way that just happened yes way you just got into Columbia University your future is set and now I feel a bit down because I didn't go to an Ivy League school but when I did get into top ranked UCLA I literally punched a wall out of excitement not because UCLA is a great school which it is but because I could tell people I go to UCLA and where you go to school has a big impact on the job you get out of college and ultimately your success in life brand name does matter but this is only if you get into a big name school work for a big company or in a prestigious profession most people don't but many do strive to get there this is where this hustle culture is born out of that the harder you work the more that you get and this identity by association extends into the workplace what happens when you don't have this label anymore when I lived in La I could tell people that I worked in finance for a Hollywood studio but after I quit my job I was unemployed didn't have a job didn't have a label didn't have an identity and in the Netherlands no one has come up to me and said oh my God you went to Maastricht University and not because maastrick isn't a great School but I feel like when people ask where you went to school what job you do it comes out of a place of curiosity who you are as a person and not by judgment and it feels very very freeing well as you can see Americans grow up in a society that tends to be more competitive so there is a bigger need to stand out to be number one to be the best otherwise you might get left behind and because there is this need to stand out there's more of this need to show off in order to stand out in the Netherlands I find that it's the opposite there's actually a Dutch saying that goes do nor Mao or act normal and this is really about standing in instead of standing out it's about not showing off there's also another one that comes from the Dutch education system the sixes culture where getting a six out of a ten just passing is good enough now for me I was a bit shocked and surprised because when I studied here and I got a 7 out of a 10 which was a c in the U.S just passing I was disappointed now a seven in the Netherlands is actually quite good but I was more shocked to hear that the Dutch students who some of them got a six were quite happy and then a Dutch classmate told me about the sixes culture where getting a six just passing was good enough for them and from my experience working in both countries what I find in the US is it's really about getting done now it's about going above and beyond even if it means working more in the Netherlands what I find is that the working culture is more chill and relaxed compared to the US there's also less pressure if there's something that can be done tomorrow instead of today let's wait until tomorrow and this reminds me of a conversation I had with a Dutch guy he told me in the Netherlands there isn't this above and beyond culture actually many people don't want to go above a certain level because more responsibility more stress but not a lot more money like in the US why go for more stress when life is already pretty good enough and it's also not to say that Dutch do normal or the sexist culture doesn't mean that the Dutch are not ambitious they are actually one of the most Innovative countries in the world but it just means that they're okay with good enough and it's okay not to brag in this Dutch way of do normao is shown in its egalitarian Aryan culture Dutch people don't care about who you are your title your status as much as Americans do it's about being the same in the Netherlands people are viewed more or less as equals and this also complements the famous Dutch directness when there is less hierarchy you feel like it's okay to be honest to say anything whether it's the janitor or the CEO in the U.S you have to be a bit more careful about what you say and to whom but in the U.S because there is more hierarchy decisions are usually made a lot faster in the U.S decisions are made by people at the top in the Netherlands decisions are usually made by the group for example in the Netherlands what usually happens if you want to make a big decision is you'll have meetings and you'll have to get the consensus and input by members of the group before making a final decision and from my experience working in the US of course people do ask you for your input as a lower level employee but if it's a big decision usually say the VP will make the decision and while things may happen faster in the US faster doesn't always mean more effective and faster doesn't always mean less hours as well there is a popular saying that goes like this in the U.S you live to work in Europe you work to live and I remember my first month working in the Netherlands it was around five o'clock and I walked around and it looked like there was nobody in the office except for me because in the U.S especially in big corporate companies you don't really see too many people get off around four o'clock five o'clock if we look at oecd statistics we can see that only 0.3 percent of workers in the Netherlands work very long hours as compared to 10.4 percent of workers in the US at the same time we can also see that the Netherlands is a country with one of the shortest working weeks in terms of hours at around 30 hours per week compared to 39 hours in the U.S a big reason why this is so is because part-time work is actually quite common in the Netherlands and it's actually quite common to find people only working four days a week or with 36 hour contracts for example my colleague has a 36 hour contract so every two weeks she gets one day off and I asked her why she did this she told me she values time over money such a thing is Unthinkable in the US where it's really about work and outside of work I used to always talk about work my European friends used to tell me to stop talking about work outside of work and it took me about a year to finally get it and I'm not saying that it's good or bad but just an observation that Americans do tend to talk more about work outside of work but it's also very different the mentality in the Netherlands the mentality in the US is really about work and making money and you can actually make a lot of money in the US so if your goal is to make money the US wins you get paid a lot of money in the states especially if you compare it to to what you're making the Netherlands you can sometimes make 2x 3x 5x 10x what you could make in the Netherlands in the US let's look at a few examples let's take a look at some salaries a software engineer a financial analyst and a teacher in the Netherlands as compared to the US now if you are a software engineer in Amsterdam you can make a median total compensation of 93 000 Euros this includes a base salary stock options and a bonus if you are a top engineer you could make up to say 400 000 Euros per year now compare that to San Francisco software engineer salaries and in SF you make a lot more money in Tech as a software engineer 231 000 median total compensation now here's the big difference if you are a top engineer in a place like San Francisco you can make a lot of money millions of dollars as a software engineer and a big portion of that is due to stock options now let's take a look at a financial analyst in Amsterdam 63 000 Euros as compared to a hundred fifty thousand dollars in San Francisco and a teacher one of the most important professions a teacher in the Netherlands will make 50 000 Euros per year as compared to the US 65 000 per year the US is really big so if we look at a place like California California teachers make around 85 000 per year now while that might be high if you're a teacher making 85k in San Francisco that's actually quite low because the cost of living in San Francisco is really high so this is a very simple comparison between Dutch and American taxes simple because taxes are complicated so these are the Dutch tax rates you have two of them anything above 73k you're getting taxed 50 now U.S taxes are more complicated because you have a federal tax rate and potentially a state tax rate for example in California you do pay state income taxes but in Texas you don't what you can see is generally you pay more taxes in the Netherlands let's take a look at five examples of five different salaries of what you would get in your take-home pay per month in the Netherlands and also in the US and what you can see is generally what you get in your paycheck in the US is going to be more than the Netherlands where you see a difference is once you make a lot more money especially in the US for example 100K 200k you get a lot more in your paycheck per month now why well it goes back to the fact that anything above seventy three thousand in the Netherlands is taxed at 50 percent so what's the finding well it's more complicated than that but if your goal is to make money and you're fortunate enough to be in a top profession then the US is the place to be in the Netherlands you can't make as much money but you also don't need to as well you go to the Netherlands for balance and a big part of balance is one vacation days and two the ability to take your vacation days as well in the US there isn't a federal guarantee of minimum vacation days per employee it depends on the company and the average is still around two weeks in the Netherlands the amount is 20 days in my company I get 25 days but I have friends who get 40 days off per year in the US I almost never took all my vacation days here in the Netherlands I always take my vacation days for example in my first year working in the Netherlands I had 25 days of vacation but I didn't use up all 25 days I didn't use up most of my vacation if I'm honest and my colleagues were like are you serious how come you're not using your vacation days and I was like can I do that is that possible because the norm in the U.S is really to work most people don't take all their vacation days but the norm in Europe in the Netherlands is that everyone is taking the vacation days especially in the summer time and when that's the norm then you also feel okay to take vacation as well and the US is the country with the most unused vacation days at the end of the year which begs the question why is that so one reason may be tied to job security people may not feel comfortable taking all the vacation in the US because there's too much work to do one may fall behind and if one falls behind one may not get promoted and one could get laid off as well because U.S employment is at will which means you can get fired at any time you're fired and especially right now with all the tech layoffs people may not want to take vacation because well they they want to prove themselves but here what I see in the Netherlands is that a lot of employees are still taking the vacation days even if their companies aren't doing that well and that's because employees in the Netherlands get a lot of Rights so now I work in HR and I was talking to a friend who works in HR and she was telling me how common it can be for managers in the US to try to fire someone in one of the European offices or the Dutch office because that person is underperforming and I want Charles gone I need him gone then this HR manager needs to let them know that it's not easy to just fire someone in the Netherlands and with layoffs a company can really only lay people off if they can prove that the company is doing bad financially so one could say it's easier to hire and fire in the US and it's harder to hire and fire in the Netherlands but this job security in the Netherlands depends if it's a temporary contract or a permanent contract and this was a shop for me coming from the US because most employees have permanent contracts to start with but in the Netherlands most employees have temporary contracts to begin with and these temporary contracts can only be converted to permanent after three years or after three extensions or if your employer decides to convert it before then but once it does become a permanent contract it's gold in the US most contracts are permanent contracts but then you can get let go at any time it's easier to hire easier to fire but once you do get a job contract in the US it's also a gold because usually with a job contract that also means Health Care oh Health Care in the US such a big and complex topic it gives me headaches but it is really important because when you consider a job you also take into consideration the health care plan of the employer because your health care is usually tied to your employer and health care in the US is extremely expensive in the Netherlands how Healthcare is not free but it is Affordable for example you'll pay one to two hundred euros a month when it comes to health care dental and vision and the deductible it's around 400 euros per year and in the US this amount can vary because it's so complex there's so many different types of healthcare plans but you'll generally pay on average around 8 000 US dollars per year for a single person and the average deductible is around two thousand dollars so you will have to pay two thousand dollars out of pocket before the benefits come into play my annual health insurance in Holland is the same as my monthly health insurance in the states my premium I pay two and a half thousand dollars for a per month for my health insurance and speaking of Health Care let's talk a little bit about sick leave short-term and long-term sick leave in the U.S if you get sick with a cold or flu now this is going to depend on your job contract your employer but generally you do get some sick days for example my job one of my jobs in the US I had 15 days of vacation and I believe it was like five six days of sick leave and if I were sick more than six days then I would need to use my vacation days what I found in the Netherlands is that if you become sick with a cold or flu something short term you can generally just take the days off now when it comes to long-term sick leave in the U.S there is no federal requirement for paid long-term sick leave this also depends on your employer and also the state so if you're burnt out sick disabled long-term in the US then an individual may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave over 12 months now if you're burnt out sick disabled long term in the Netherlands then by law the company is required to pay you at least 70 percent of your wages for maximum period of two years now many companies will often pay a hundred percent in that first year and some will pay 100 for two years and something else I found out about recently working in the Netherlands is if you're sick on vacation you're eligible to swap those days out for sick days instead for example one of my friends went to Malaysia and she got sick and when she came back her employer found out and told her just to swap out those days and use sick days instead of vacation days so that that's a pretty cool benefit as well I'm burnt out how normal it is for people to openly admit that they are burnt out or were burnt out I mean by now I've met at least 10 people who have told me that they're currently going through a burnout or they went through burnout and to say it openly like it's a normal sickness like a coat or a flu but in fact in the Netherlands burnout is treated like a normal sickness but when I was working in the U.S I had never heard of the word burnout nor did I know what it meant but in the Netherlands I hear it all the time left and right and it's not because there's more burnout in the Netherlands in fact if you look at studies there seems to be more burnout cases in the U.S compared to the Netherlands well again like we discussed there is protection and employee rights when it comes to burnout in the Netherlands so burnout is not a good thing at all but in the Netherlands it's not as stigmatized as much as it is in other countries people feel like it's okay to admit that they're burnt out to admit that they need help because they do get protection they do get benefits when it comes to burnout and sick leave and that's the big difference so which is a better country to work in well that depends on who you are what you value your dreams and goals in life generally in the US you can make a lot more money depending on the profession but it tends to favor those in the top one five ten percent of the population and those that are more career driven now in the Netherlands you do get more work-life balance pace of work life is generally slower and you do get more personal time and employee rights as well now I'd love to hear from you what have your experiences been working in the US and or the Netherlands leave them in the comments below and I hope you take care

Channel: David Wen

Views: 872,457

Keywords: moving to europe, life in the netherlands, cultural differences, the netherlands, dutch culture, moving to amsterdam, life in europe, work-life balance, burnout, culture shocks, dutch culture shocks, american culture shock, holland, san francisco, california, los angeles, dutch people, life in the usa

Id: fw0gJgMhaqo

Length: 19min 32sec (1172 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023