Lunch/dinner expense related to a client meeting? At least for us, it doesn’t affect the per diem. I don’t really have any information because these happen so rarely.
I did seven years of international travel work. I was on the road almost every week, but all expenses could be put on travel costs. I wouldn’t trade that for daily allowances. If you travel a lot, dinner was always the reward of the day to help you keep going. Same for lunch, of course. I didn’t eat many sandwiches, but rather proper meals.
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You have to be persistent. I wouldn’t have the stamina myself. We’re not talking about huge sums in the end, but then again, we have those who leave on Monday morning and return on Friday. The hotel provides breakfast, and lunch with a client is on the company’s dime. A couple of rolls for an evening snack, so there are hardly any expenses. It’s quite a substantial addition for many. Of course, in sales you have to go the extra mile and there might be sauna evenings etc. that you’re forced to attend. They are expensive men for the company when you add up salaries, cars, hotels, perks, etc. Of course, you have to deliver results too. On top of that, bonuses motivate you to do a bit extra.
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Could you elaborate a bit more? What field do you work in? In my opinion, the salary sounds quite low considering your education, title, and experience.
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At least according to my own employer’s (the state) new guidelines, even a single free meal, for example on a plane, removes the right to a full foreign per diem.
Everything is working time (part of it is usually travel time, which is compensated at the same rate as work hours) from the moment you leave home until you return. At least that’s how it is for us. Of course, this only applies to travel days, not normal workdays.
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Salaries in Finland are indeed very poor even for M.Sc. (Tech) graduates in certain fields. With a few years of experience, every M.Sc. (Tech) should be earning at least 5k gross. Anything else is underpayment.
Business Sciences, M.Sc. (Econ.) 2014
2015: €2,700/mo (Job No. 1)
2016: €2,750/mo (General increase)
2017: €3,300/mo (Job No. 2)
2018: €3,400/mo (General increase)
2019: €3,900/mo (Small promotion)
2020: €6,000/mo (Job No. 3)
2021: €6,100/mo (General increase)
2022: €6,700/mo (Small promotion)
2023: €6,850/mo (General increase)
2024: €7,000/mo (General increase)
2025e: €7,150/mo (General increase)
Switching from Job No. 2 to Job No. 3 was an excellent success. Jumping up to a higher pay grade at this point would mean hunting for Job No. 4. Current tasks are pleasant and the pay is at a good level, but no increase larger than an index adjustment is expected for next year.
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I don’t travel abroad much myself, but I always look at the trip as a whole to see if I even bother claiming per diems from my employer, even if I were entitled to them. In my view, if a business trip includes a networking event or a client dinner, I’ve already benefited so much at the employer’s expense that I don’t claim per diems from them, but instead account for it in my tax return.
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Just because of the degree certificate? Luckily, in the private sector, performance is at least somewhat taken into account.
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And conversely, in the public sector, the emphasis is again on nominal paper credentials, especially Master’s or Doctoral degrees. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not against higher education, but degree inflation among the highly educated is a very real thing.
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Well, that’s not what I meant. The person whose salary sparked the discussion worked as a project manager, so I assume they are performing their duties perfectly well. You are right in the sense that a degree alone doesn’t guarantee anything yet, but the papers of a Master of Science in Technology (DI) provide a pretty solid foundation for that performance. Note: I am not a DI myself, but a Master of Science (FM), and I had a much easier time than my friends at the technical university (poli).
What I meant generally is that the salaries of the highly educated in Finland are miserable across the board, even in the technical field. I don’t have an explanation; perhaps productivity growth has been weak.
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Having recruited a lot in the public sector, I don’t agree with this claim. Or well, it depends on what you mean by emphasizing? For jobs at a certain level, a University of Applied Sciences (UAS) degree or equivalent is usually desired, but only in a fraction of roles are there actually specific eligibility requirements, and even those are regulated by law/decree.
Between applicants, competence weighs much more than whether one is UAS-educated and the other, for example, a Master of Science in Technology.
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There are certainly sector-specific differences, but in my experience, in the social and healthcare sector, a Master’s or Doctoral degree often tends to be at least a preference (and explicitly mentioned). And I don’t mean medical doctors now.
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I don’t know what positions you’ve been looking at, but in the social sector, Bachelors of Social Services (UAS) work as instructors and Master’s degree holders as social workers. Very few jobs require even a Licentiate degree.
EDIT: KalleH correctly pointed out below that a breakfast included in the hotel price is not a meal as defined in the conditions for halving the per diem, so the information I wrote below was incorrect.
If the full per diem is paid even though breakfast is provided at the hotel and the company pays for lunch, it constitutes an unjustified tax-free benefit granted to the employee. The issue is therefore not whether this is fair compensation from the employer for the inconvenience of traveling, but whether the compensation is paid legally or through tax evasion.
The situation you described, where breakfast is provided by the hotel and the company provides lunch or dinner, while also paying the full per diem, is contrary to the Tax Administration’s guidelines.
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Out of interest: how much money ends up in your account per month from a €7,000/mo gross salary?
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Generally, a wide range of healthcare specialist roles, excluding titles like the social worker you mentioned, which legally require specific qualifications.
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Employee tax rates - Taxpayers Association of Finland (veronmaksajat.fi)
That gives a pretty good idea of what the take-home pay is for different monthly salaries.
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Because nothing in Finland is simple, “meals” refers to two meals, and the breakfast included in the hotel price is not counted as a meal.
A hotel breakfast is not a meal as defined above. For this reason, the maximum tax-free amount of the full daily allowance is not halved, even if the employee receives breakfast and a free lunch during the business trip.
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