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Amsterdam for me! More fun and slightly cheaper and very well connected!
The issue with Amsterdam is that it's nearly impossible to get housing if you're not house sharing. I spent 3 years and 300 applications to get a single house viewing I luckily converted into a rental and I'm in the 1% in income with over 11k gross base salary so I was bidding on stuff that absolutely most people could not remotely afford.
Additionally salaries in Amsterdam are low, a manager would maybe make 5.2-6k gross per month in big 4 in a high value line of service which is not enough for the average studio rent price of 1700-2000+300 in costs for one person (assuming you can get a place.)
However Amsterdam is by far the more interesting and fun city if you're younger or are single. There's a big gender gap between women and men in the city, so if you're a high earning man you'll do just fine.
Zurich is nicer if you have a family, want to earn big bucks, get a cheap little apartment to live in and just save for a house back home.
Keep in mind in Amsterdam you can benefit from the 30% tax incentive which is being handicapped from this year on but is still a nice thing to consider.
Ad1 I don't know when you moved here, but since the end of 2021 things have gotten progressively worse and worse. The housing is a pure lottery situation.
COVID was a welcome respite and led to falls in rental prices and more supply.
Some of the real estate agencies put out the number of applicants for each place. On average Amsterdam had around 400-500 applicants for each halfway decent place below 2k (aka not a 28 sqm dump) whereas the Hague had 20-40 for the same type of places just to show the difference between AMS and the rest of NL
If he is willing to shell out 3k for a place for 2500 rent plus costs (including trash and local council fees) he can definitely get something relatively easily aka within two three months.
Pay will be a lot better in Zurich then Amsterdam but costs will be higher. Glassdoor is your best bet to gauge salary for specific firms. Big difference between M salary at big 4 vs MBB
Mentor
If you can, visit each city for a week (or can you stay longer and work remote?) and stay in an Airbnb so you experience what it’s like to live there.
You can compare COL https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp
Also research tax differences and what’s covered by the government vs what you need to cover privately (ie. Healthcare) to make sure you understand the full cost of living in each place.
I lived in both, currently working in Zurich and living in suburbs. Would choose Amsterdam. Almost impossible to put aside any money on Zurich and we have 17K of disposable income monthly.
Sounds like you’re daydreaming without having even visited these cities?
That’s step 1…