Hacker News Reader

Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Government IT: pays government salaries

Private sector: pays more than lawyers and surgeons even if yiu never graduated college

Gee I wonder where smart ambitious people will go

Exactly. I dropped out of university, so I can't be hired by any German agency/office, because a degree is a hard requirement. But I can work for them as a consultant asking for more than two-three times the money...

The salary is a joke, I've made their base salary, which requires at least bachelors degree, as part time working student in private sector.

There is only one reason to work for the government in Germany and it's called "Verbeamtung" (a legal state where you are not employed, but appointed for government service, it's almost impossible to get fired and you pay little to no taxes, etc.), but the whole office politics and long decision making channels are awful (source: me working for a company owned by the local government years ago).

Agree with everything, except for the point about taxes. Income tax for employees, state officials („Beamte“) and self employed people in Germany is exactly the same regarding the tax rates. The difference is social insurance, especially pensions and health insurance.

And pensions, and health insurance, state officials (Beamte) get a (non small part) part of the health insurance payed by the state (at least that was the case in many state official jobs until recently).

When you get old and had a not supper high paying job this can easily be as if you had gotten 50%-100% more salery!! At the same time they (state officials) complain they get to little. It's completely stupid. AND at the same time non "Beamte" state officials do not get any such benefits, nor especially good pensions or reasonable pay or absurd employment protections(1) or even a proper working contract...

(1): If you are a "ver_beamte_ter" state official it's close to impossible to get fired as long as you don't idk. commit some serve crime (and a few other special cases). So you are not getting any work done because you don't care anyone, no problem keep your job. You mess up all your work, ok you still have a job. You working moral degraded to a degree you are basically unemployable and still you have a full paycheck every moth and keep your job. Through besides serve crimes there are a few things which can cost you your job, but they are easy to avoid.

Anyway this doesn't meant there are not honest, proper employees in such positions it's just very hard for them to keep their motivation.

To be fair: German employee protection is so strong, it's almost impossible for anyone to get fired from any company bigger than 10 employees for reasons other than committing crimes or felonies, as long as the company cannot prove that they have to let people go due to bad overall business. Even then, as an employer, you cannot simply fire the underachievers, but you have to negotiate with the works council to be able to keep the youngest, highest performers, because they have the least protection and have to fired first...

Which is exactly how it should be, no? Or do you favour kickin someone in their 50s out who has worked at the place for the last 20 years and will have a super hard time to find another job no matter how hard they try, so that their only option is being unemployed and to rely on social security?

First, employers should be able to keep employees based on merit, not on arbitrary measures neither the employer nor the employee can change (sex, gender, age,...). If a company is already in trouble, having to let go talent will hurt them even more. It’s so hard (and expensive) to let people go in Germany that it’s almost always the last cry for help to get more subsidies or shut down for good. The 50 year old won’t any guarantee to keep that job for much longer like that... Secondl, the reasoning holds also for an overperforming 50 year old employee who’s recently been hired vs. a 35 year old that started vocational training 19 years prior - no chance for the newbie to stay. What’s your opinion on this? Third, the job market for people with experience is very good in Germany. There are indefinite ways to learn new skills and redevelop your career, mostly sponsored by the taxpayer. At age 50, a lot of people start their second or third career. I don’t trust the narrative that old People are doomed if they lose their job compared to a 28 year old with two kids and a husband that’s doing his PhD on a shitty part time salary.

On the other hand, employers often work around the restrictions on termination by employing people on a fixed-term employment contract ("befristeter Arbeitsvertrag") and then extending the employment period again and again [1]. In many sectors it is pretty much impossible to get an indefinite contract.

[1] Although there is a regular limit of two years, i.e. if you continue working after two years the employment contract will be considered indefinite. (Obligatory IANAL)

Funny thing - the only entity allowed to make „Kettenbefristung“ (chaining fixed-term contracts) indefinite is... ... the government!

"Verbeamtung" which you basically won't have any chance of getting in most German states in a IT related job even if you litterally save their ass.

The only way to do money there is by having a position where you can make decisions and then twist requirements for "external tasks" so that "your" company has a good chance to get it. Worse if you don't twist requirements the job is still most likely going to a partially incompetent scam company due to how stupid the whole process it...

So this might be an element of the problem, but having been in government for 17 years (and last 5 dealing with IT), I'm not even sure this is a top 3 problem.

Against all odds, the government manages to recruit and retain people who can do good work.

The larger problem is that government seems designed to make it impossible for IT talent to actually apply their talent. Now I understand why one of Grace Hopper's most famous quotes in the Navy was "it is better to beg forgiveness, than to ask permission".

Additionally, well. the BKA, similar to the FBI, looks for security experts. However, since they would be employed by the BKA, they have to go through mandatory physical exams and drug tests. That's just dumb. I'd be able and interested to do that work, but I'm medically unable and not allowed to do that test. So that's that topic done. Can't do security due to asthma.

People always wonder why our government often sucks so hard at implementing stuff.

Easy solution:

1. Pay fewer people more money 2. Reinstitute civil service exams

I guess this is politically impossible?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com