Work & careers
働き方とキャリアWORK
The conditions around the work: hours, remote work, employment contracts, company size, pay and how careers move.
59 claimsWell attested 21Attested 34Thin 4
Related scales
These scales describe national averages that bear on this theme. They place countries relative to one another; they say nothing about any one engineer.
- Culture MapSchedulingLinear time ↔ Flexible timeWhether plans are fixed and sequential or adapted as things come up.
- Culture MapTrustingTask-based ↔ Relationship-basedWhether trust comes from reliable work or from personal relationships.
- HofstedeMotivation towards achievement and successConsensus-oriented ↔ DecisiveFormerly masculinity/femininity: whether competition and achievement or care and quality of life drive people.
- HofstedeIndulgenceRestrained ↔ IndulgentHow freely people may act on their desires and enjoy life.
Japan日本JP5 claims
South Korea韓国KR7 claims
OECD data put South Korea's annual working hours in 2023 at 1,872, about 200 hours above the OECD average.
Attested1 source2024kr-work-1
News reports say working conditions in the IT and game industries improved substantially after the 52-hour workweek cap took effect in 2018.
Attested1 source2023kr-work-2
In KOCCA's 2024 survey of game industry workers (n=1,510), 34.3% had experienced crunch and 69.9% were on an all-inclusive wage system, which bundles overtime into a fixed salary. At companies with fewer than 50 employees the share exceeded 90%.
Attested2 sources2025kr-work-3
Remote work policies vary by company. Naver kept Connected Work, which lets staff choose fully remote or three office days a week every six months, while Kakao effectively returned everyone to the office from 2024.
Attested2 sources2024kr-work-4
After the scramble for developers in 2021, the market reversed: in a 2024 Grepp survey, 34% of companies said they would hire fewer developers.
Attested1 source2024kr-work-5
In the 2021 Programmers developer survey, 63.1% of respondents worked at companies with 50 or fewer developers.
Well attested1 source2021kr-work-6
- 2021 프로그래머스 개발자 설문조사 (2021)
Reports say that in multi-tier SI subcontracting, freelance developers at the bottom of the chain are especially exposed to unpaid fees when a project is halted or an intermediary goes bankrupt.
Attested2 sources2019kr-work-7
China中国CN4 claims
In March 2019, the GitHub repository 996.ICU went up in protest against overwork and passed 1,000 stars within its first hour. In August 2021, the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security published typical cases stating that the 996 schedule is illegal.
Attested3 sources2021cn-work-1
In 2021, Kuaishou and ByteDance ended the alternating six-day week (daxiaozhou). At ByteDance the loss of overtime pay cut take-home pay by 17% on average, and an internal poll reportedly found about 30% wanted to keep the old schedule.
Attested2 sources2021cn-work-2
News reports describe a "curse of 35" in which people over 35 are disadvantaged in layoffs and hiring. In a recruitment platform's survey, 87% of programmers were worried about losing their job or finding a new one after 35. Chinese labor law does not explicitly ban age discrimination.
Attested3 sources2025cn-work-3
As a reaction to neijuan (involution), reports describe tangping (lying flat), people leaving high-paying jobs for a 10-to-6, five-day schedule, and runxue (emigrating). Layoffs at big tech firms are also said to be pushing new graduates toward civil service jobs.
Attested3 sources2025cn-work-4
IndiaインドIN5 claims
NASSCOM estimated India's tech industry revenue for FY2025 at about $282.6 billion, with 5.8 million employees (a net addition of 126,000). A 2026 revision raised these to $297 billion and 5.82 million.
Attested2 sources2026in-work-1
According to NASSCOM and Zinnov, India had more than 1,700 global capability centers (GCCs) of foreign companies employing more than 1.9 million people as of FY2024. GCCs are also spreading to tier-2 cities.
Attested2 sources2024in-work-2
Attrition at the large IT services firms swings with the business cycle. In Q2 FY23 it was 27.1% at Infosys, 23% at Wipro and 21.5% at TCS; by Q4 FY24 it had fallen to 12.5% at TCS and 12.6% at Infosys.
Attested2 sources2024in-work-3
According to USCIS, 72.3% of H-1B petitions approved in FY2023 were for people born in India; 11.7% were for people born in China.
Well attested2 sources2025in-work-4
In 2023, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy said young Indians should work 70 hours a week. The remark drew strong backlash on social media but support from some business leaders, and public opinion split.
Attested2 sources2023in-work-5
United StatesアメリカUS5 claims
According to the BLS, median employee tenure in January 2024 was 3.9 years overall, the lowest since January 2002. In the private sector it was 3.5 years.
Well attested1 source2024us-work-1
- BLS: Employee Tenure in 2024 (2024)
At-will employment is the default in every state except Montana. Unless the reason is illegal, either the employer or the employee can end the employment relationship at any time.
Well attested1 sourceus-work-2
According to layoffs.fyi figures cited by TechCrunch, tech layoffs in 2024 exceeded 150,000 people at 549 companies. The peak was 2023, with about 260,000.
Attested1 source2024us-work-3
In the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, 45% of US respondents work fully remote, the highest share among the top responding countries. Median salaries were $200k for engineering managers, $175k for back-end developers, and $138k for full-stack developers.
Well attested1 source2025us-work-4
In Staff Engineer (2021), Will Larson sorts Staff+ individual-contributor roles, which do not require becoming a manager, into four archetypes: Tech Lead, Architect, Solver, and Right Hand.
Attested1 source2021us-work-5
- Will Larson: Staff Engineer (2021)
United KingdomイギリスUK4 claims
According to the ONS, full-time workers averaged 36.6 actual hours per week in 2024. The figure covers all occupations, not only engineers.
Well attested1 source2026gb-work-1
In the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, 31.9% of UK respondents work fully remote and 25.8% work hybrid leaning flexible. Median salaries were $136,141 for engineering managers and $108,913 for back-end developers, about 60 to 70% of US levels.
Well attested1 source2025gb-work-2
Making 20 or more people redundant requires collective consultation. Consultation must start at least 30 days before the first dismissal for 20 to 99 redundancies, and at least 45 days before for 100 or more.
Well attested1 sourcegb-work-3
In a 2022 four-day week pilot (61 companies, about 2,900 employees), 56 companies continued afterward and 71% of employees reported less burnout. Most participants were small companies, and the pilot was not limited to tech.
Attested1 source2023gb-work-4
GermanyドイツDE5 claims
According to Eurostat, average actual weekly hours in 2024 (ages 20 to 64, full-time and part-time combined) were 33.9 in Germany, below the EU average of 36.0.
Well attested1 source2025de-work-1
In its decision of 13 September 2022 (1 ABR 22/21), the Federal Labor Court held that employers must record working time. Trust-based working time (Vertrauensarbeitszeit), where employees manage their own hours, remains lawful.
Attested2 sources2022de-work-2
According to Destatis, SMEs as defined by the EU made up 99.3% of all enterprises and 54% of persons employed in 2024. IfM Bonn defines the Mittelstand by the unity of ownership and management rather than by size, so it is a separate concept.
Well attested2 sources2024de-work-3
According to a site compiling Eurostat data, about 13.2% of employed people usually worked from home in 2025, above the EU average. Destatis figures cited by Euronews put the share at about 24% in 2024 when occasional home working is included.
Attested2 sources2026de-work-4
According to OECD data for 2019, establishments with 10 or fewer employees are exempt from the standard dismissal protection rules. Dismissals must also be notified to the works council beforehand.
Well attested1 source2019de-work-5
FranceフランスFR5 claims
The statutory working week is 35 hours. The Syntec collective agreement for the IT sector provides a 35-hour arrangement (modalité 1), a 38.5-hour flat arrangement capped at 219 days a year (modalité 2), and forfait jours, a 218-day annual arrangement generally without overtime pay (modalité 3).
Attested2 sources2026fr-work-1
Eurostat data cited by Euronews and Fortune put average actual weekly hours in France at about 36, in line with the EU average and nearly flat from 2014 to 2024.
Attested2 sources2025fr-work-2
According to Numeum, the digital sector employs about 666,000 people. Hiring fell from 83,800 in 2023 to 51,800 in 2024, and turnover dropped from 22% to 16%. The decline was sharpest at large ESNs, while software publishers held up better.
Attested2 sources2025fr-work-3
According to industry blogs and a lawyer's article, ESNs structurally generate idle periods between assignments (intercontrat). Isolation and loss of motivation among consultants waiting for an assignment are cited as problems.
Thin2 sources2022fr-work-4
According to a site compiling Eurostat data, about 11.3% of employed people in France usually worked from home in 2025.
Attested1 source2026fr-work-5
The Nordics北欧NORD4 claims
Eurostat reports that actual weekly hours in the main job in Denmark were 33.9 in 2024, below the EU average of 36.0. Among men in full-time work in 2025, Finland and the Netherlands had the shortest weeks at 38.4 hours, followed by Sweden at 38.5.
Well attested2 sources2026nordics-work-1
Swedish parental leave totals 480 days, with 90 days reserved for each parent. Norway offers 49 weeks at full pay with a 15-week father's quota, and Finland's 2022 reform gives each parent 160 days.
Attested2 sources2025nordics-work-2
A secondary site that aggregates Eurostat's lfsa_ehomp data puts the share of employed people in Finland who usually work from home at 21.1% in 2025.
Attested1 source2025nordics-work-3
Danish flexicurity combines easy dismissal with generous unemployment benefits and active labor market policy, protecting employment rather than any particular job. The IMF (2006) noted a side effect: generous benefits can push up structural unemployment.
Attested2 sources2006Datednordics-work-4
NetherlandsオランダNL2 claims
Eurostat reports that actual weekly hours in the main job were 32.1 in 2024, the shortest in the EU (EU average 36.0). The main reason is the high share of part-time work; men in full-time work averaged 38.4 hours (2025).
Well attested2 sources2026nl-work-1
CBS reports that 52% of employed people worked from home at least sometimes in 2023. In the 2022 EU comparison, 12.7% worked from home most of the time, lower than in Finland (23.1%) or Ireland (25.3%).
Well attested1 source2024nl-work-2
IsraelイスラエルIL3 claims
High-tech employed about 400,000 people in 2025, 11.4% of the employed workforce. Exports hit a record $85 billion, 58% of all exports. Employment grew 2.5%, well below the roughly 6% annual average of the previous decade.
Well attested2 sources2026il-work-1
R&D headcount fell by about 3,500 in 2025. According to the Israel Innovation Authority (2025), Israeli companies employ about 440,000 people abroad on top of the roughly 400,000 in Israel, and private companies keep about half of their R&D staff overseas.
Well attested2 sources2026il-work-2
The Adva Center criticizes the "Start-up Nation" image, noting that high-tech then employed no more than 8% of the workforce. It reports that 65% of high-tech employees are men and that they come disproportionately from top high schools, elite military units and leading universities.
Attested1 sourceil-work-3
BrazilブラジルBR4 claims
According to the salary-guide publisher Talenlio, PJ contracts (working as a company under a service contract) are often offered at 30-40% more than CLT employment contracts. If the work is in fact employment, courts can reclassify it as a CLT contract.
Thin1 source2026br-work-1
In the 2026 Código Fonte TV salary survey (17,046 respondents, self-selected sample), average CLT pay rose 14.4% year on year, while PJ pay rose 0.7%. The figures come from Talenlio's summary.
Thin1 source2026br-work-2
Brasscom (2021) estimated demand for 797,000 tech professionals over 2021-25. With about 53,000 graduates a year from relevant programs, that implies a shortfall of about 106,000 a year.
Attested1 source2021br-work-3
Data from the hiring platform Arc.dev puts the median pay of Brazilian developers working remotely for foreign companies at $56,300, about three times the local median of $18,400. Seventy percent of those foreign employers are in the US or UK.
Thin1 source2022br-work-4
PolandポーランドPL3 claims
In Bulldogjob's 2024 survey, 50.3% of IT workers were on employment contracts and 37.4% on B2B contracts. Average monthly pay for full-time workers was 22,011 PLN on B2B (net on invoice) and 9,236 PLN on employment contracts (take-home).
Well attested1 source2024pl-work-1
In No Fluff Jobs listings for the first half of 2024, 74% of senior offers included a B2B contract. Among junior offers, employment contracts were the majority at 56%.
Attested1 source2024pl-work-2
About 488,700 people worked in business service centers at the end of Q1 2025, up 6.2% year on year (ABSL 2025).
Attested1 source2025pl-work-3
UkraineウクライナUA3 claims
In DOU surveys, the share of IT workers registered as FOP (sole proprietors) fell from 87% (2022) to 70% (2024), 57% (2025) and 49% (2026). Workers are moving to Diia.City gig contracts and employment contracts.
Well attested2 sources2026ua-work-1
Diia.City gig contracts, introduced in 2022, carry 5% personal income tax, a 5% military levy and social contributions of 22% of the minimum wage. As of October 2026 the regime had more than 4,600 resident companies covering about 217,000 specialists.
Attested2 sources2026ua-work-2
In DOU's December 2025 survey (4,522 responses), the median developer take-home pay was $3,450. A study by the law firm Juscutum and the Diia.City Union found that about 20% of IT professionals work from abroad.
Attested2 sources2026ua-work-3