Ask HN: Workers outside of the US and the weakening US dollar

1 point·monkey26··3 comments

I know I'm not alone here, I work (ie: contract, but full time) for a US entity and get paid a fixed US rate, but with the dollar weakening I'm at a reasonable loss from when I started 2 years ago.

How are others dealing with this? Either from their side as the work, or even from the company side.

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Is the dollar weakening? Looks like there's a slight dip but nothing so unordinary. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=EUR&view=5Y

Even on that chart if you were hired mid 2019 you'd be looking at a 5% loss if paid in USD. That can be considerable. Of course the reverse could be true benefitting the worker as well.

But more generally I'm assuming this is a problem that some companies must have a solution for, even if its "tough luck".

In general companies will not want to start paying in a foreign currency or have adjustment provisions that would put risk on them (and you, actually as they may decide to cut you loose if you suddenly become more expensive).

This is a common problem for people paid in foreign currency. They can win or they can lose... Not many things to do apart from negotiating a salary high enough to make it worthwhile or to play the currency market (i.e. don't immediately exchange what you don't need to if you think exchange rate will improve).

I suppose someone would only consider that arrangement (being paid in a foreign currency as a remote contractor) if that was much better paid than local salary in the first place.

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