Hi guys!
French neighbour here. Just got off the phone with someone in The Netherlands that might have an engineering job for me. But I know nothing about your country so I guess I have a few general questions if you could please help me:
1/ when you're given a gross salary, what's the percentage that you get out of it?
2/ what's the cost of life like compared to other European countries? I just spent a weekend in Amsterdam a few years ago, it seemed more or less the same as in France.
3/ how difficult is it to find a place to live when you're only there for like six months?
4/ how's English for you guys? I mean, I know nothing about Dutch (nor German for that matter) so how hard would it be for me to learn it or to live there with only English to save myself?
Oh, it would be in Nijmegen.
Thanks guys, cheers.
1. Depends on how much you make, but on average you would have about 30% to 35% of it taken away by the government.
2. We're pretty much equal to other European countries like France, yeah. Open borders and all don't leave much wiggle room really.
3. It's pretty easy to find a place, Nijmegen has alot of students, so there's alot of relative low-price (furnished) rooms you can find. Wouldn't bet to find anything via goverment regulated corporations though, there's several year waiting lists on low-rent stuff generally, a newcomer has no chance to get in there. I'm sure your employer can help you out with this stuff if he's worth a damn, so ask there if they can help you.
4. Almost everyone speaks basic English, and alot of us are more or less fluent. You won't have any problems there. Dutch people are programmed to switch immediatly to a foreign language to accomodate visitors. If they hear you speak English to them, they'll switch without a single complaint.
That said, Nijmegen is a fantastic city, one of my favorites as far as city centre's go. NL is small, and we have good public transportation via train. You can visit pretty much the entire country from there with 2 hours travel time tops.
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