In France we have the “thirteenth month” as we call it. I never had one, but in that latest job they announced having one, so I was rather chuffed to finally discover the practice and asked them about it during the interview. “so you gonna give me a full month salary bonus at the end of the year?” cue a long, convoluted explanation… which boiled down to “no, we just shuffle shit around so you get more in December, no extra money, really”.
But it just shows how ingrained that idea of a Christmas bonus is.
Belgium, “13th month” also exists here. And it being a legal thing, i wonder if this is what people mean when they talk about work bonus on the other side of the world.
Its, afaik, the same as a pay before tax, but the tax is higher than with an actual paycheck. Doesnt mean it isnt a nice chunk of money ( 70-80% of a paycheck )
Je ne suis donc pas le seul à ne pas comprendre le principe faute de n’en avoir jamais eu. Ouf… Je me sentais un peu bête et très seul.
En gros dans ma boîte ils te modifient le salaire mensuel pour Décembre (et aussi un peu avant les grandes vacances). Mais c’est toujours le même salaire per annum donc c’est un tour de passe passe, quoi. Ça aide les gens qui arrivent pas à économiser, j’imagine.
En fait, en December tu as souvent plus de dépenses que les autres mois de l’année. Cadeaux de Noël, bouffes entre ami, vacances et aussi factures etc. Alors un deuxième salaire est bienvenue. Meme si il est en quelque sorte virtuel.
Il y a aussi certaines entreprises qui versant le salaire en avance en décembre. Alors quand j’avais que 12 salaire, celui de janvier m’était une plombe à arriver.
In Germany that exists as well, we get “holiday money” some time in late spring/early summer and “Christmas money” which we get in November. Both of them add up to a full month’s salary together, so it’s essentially 13 salaries/year
To be fair, usually you get that when you are already employed somewhere with good working conditions and an above average salary. Eg Daiichi Sankyo does that with technical assistants, but they already have a great starting salary of roughly 43k with no job experience. That’s much higher than other companies pay their TAs (Eurofins paid 22k to new TAs), and these companies pat themselves on the back for giving you a punch on a 30 minute Christmas themed extra break as a holiday treat.