One good news is that US remote companies have been expanding to Europe, which will drive up salaries there over time to attract top talents. Gergely Orosz's Trimodal Nature of Tech Compensation in the US, UK and India has info on top paying companies in UK: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/trimodal
Yeah, but the expansion is usually only in a handful of places like the Dublin, Amsterdam, Warsaw and that's about it. There really isn't a remote for Europe.
I am not too familiar with Europe, but a remote job usually ties to a specific country, likely due to tax or some regulations. Another reason is that different country in the same continent has different cost of living and salary band, etc.
For some of these reasons, it might explain why while there is remote job in US or Canada or Mexico, there is no remote job for North America, the continent for these 3 countries. This might help explain why there isn't a remote job for Europe as it is a continent.
Haven't said this, it seems to be a great advantage for companies who can overcome the challenge and offer remote for Europe if it is an appealing offer.
It can be difficult to understand the various countries’ laws and their practical application for employers, requiring country-by-country study.
The same policies that provide strong protections for employees against being terminated can serve as a barrier against those same employees being hired in the first place. Different countries have chosen different points in that regard. Netherlands is stronger than the US for employee protections, but not as strong as Germany. France offers even more protections for employees.
Employers can’t treat EU as a single country, because, well, it’s not. They have to understand the laws and usually incorporate in each country. (None of this is complaining that it ought to be some other way, but rather just observing why you don’t see typical non-giant companies offering “anywhere in EU remote” roles [and agreeing with your analogy to North America].)
They do to an extent - plenty of 120-150k fully remote or one-day-a-month jobs based out of Dublin, Ireland. Just that our tax rate is 52% over 75k, and our capital gains is 33% after an allowance of €1270, so they tend to trade-off hours and responsibility for pure salary at the most senior levels.
Its so sad that companies arn't ok with a simple US llc wrapper. EU people can deal with their own taxes the possible tax savings are well worth the extra paper work for an EU worker so i'm sure they would be willing. But HR compliance people are so risk averse they don't want to see any non standard candidates.
> EU people can deal with their own taxes the possible tax savings are well worth the extra paper work for an EU worker so i'm sure they would be willing.
Several companies have been taking this approach recently, requiring you to set up a "small one-person business" (replace with whatever it's called in your specific EU country) which is a long and costly bureaucratic process so that you can pay a shit-ton of taxes while getting less net salary than if they would just pay the taxes for you (like any other EU employer). They give you 0.75x the money they themselves would spend to employ you while covering the taxes, tell you to deal with it yourself, and wrap it in cellophane with "hey but you're saving so much on the taxes!". Of course completely ignoring that you, the employee living in your EU country, are the one who actually benefits from them.
What are you implying? The structure for contracting or consultancy in Ireland and most of Western Europe is exactly that - setup a one-person LLC or act as a sole-trader
Low Salaries in Europe are because of progressive tax regimes leading to extremely low wealth inequality and far higher social cohesion.
It's like when agitators use the comparable GDPs of Bavaria and Mississippi as a KPI indicating Europe's lack of economic prowess. In fact, it's just a scathing indictment of wealth inequality in Mississippi where life expectancy is 10 years less and infant mortality 400% higher than in Bavara, despite their similar GDPs.
Concentration of economic power generally leads to concentration of political power (ie non-democracy). There are tons of pathways, eg campaign finance, lobbying, media ownership, threat of capital flight, regulatory capture, to name a few.
I'm not agreeing with the parent comment, but I've long held the opinion that one of the the reasons the US is so much more economically successful than Europe is because businesses have so much more influence over government.
This is viewed negatively in general (perhaps rightly), but I think it does provide some balance between the incentives of wealth creation and workers. For example, here in the UK we'll happily regulate entire sectors of the economy out of business every year, but in the US attempts to do this would be met with huge multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns.
One good news is that US remote companies have been expanding to Europe, which will drive up salaries there over time to attract top talents. Gergely Orosz's Trimodal Nature of Tech Compensation in the US, UK and India has info on top paying companies in UK: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/trimodal
Yeah, but the expansion is usually only in a handful of places like the Dublin, Amsterdam, Warsaw and that's about it. There really isn't a remote for Europe.
I am not too familiar with Europe, but a remote job usually ties to a specific country, likely due to tax or some regulations. Another reason is that different country in the same continent has different cost of living and salary band, etc.
For some of these reasons, it might explain why while there is remote job in US or Canada or Mexico, there is no remote job for North America, the continent for these 3 countries. This might help explain why there isn't a remote job for Europe as it is a continent.
Haven't said this, it seems to be a great advantage for companies who can overcome the challenge and offer remote for Europe if it is an appealing offer.
It can be difficult to understand the various countries’ laws and their practical application for employers, requiring country-by-country study.
The same policies that provide strong protections for employees against being terminated can serve as a barrier against those same employees being hired in the first place. Different countries have chosen different points in that regard. Netherlands is stronger than the US for employee protections, but not as strong as Germany. France offers even more protections for employees.
Employers can’t treat EU as a single country, because, well, it’s not. They have to understand the laws and usually incorporate in each country. (None of this is complaining that it ought to be some other way, but rather just observing why you don’t see typical non-giant companies offering “anywhere in EU remote” roles [and agreeing with your analogy to North America].)
They do to an extent - plenty of 120-150k fully remote or one-day-a-month jobs based out of Dublin, Ireland. Just that our tax rate is 52% over 75k, and our capital gains is 33% after an allowance of €1270, so they tend to trade-off hours and responsibility for pure salary at the most senior levels.
Never forget that taxing and social systems in Europe work very different and that's why you can get by with "lower" incomes.
It also means that taxation at higher incomes is significantly more oppressive
Its so sad that companies arn't ok with a simple US llc wrapper. EU people can deal with their own taxes the possible tax savings are well worth the extra paper work for an EU worker so i'm sure they would be willing. But HR compliance people are so risk averse they don't want to see any non standard candidates.
> EU people can deal with their own taxes the possible tax savings are well worth the extra paper work for an EU worker so i'm sure they would be willing.
Several companies have been taking this approach recently, requiring you to set up a "small one-person business" (replace with whatever it's called in your specific EU country) which is a long and costly bureaucratic process so that you can pay a shit-ton of taxes while getting less net salary than if they would just pay the taxes for you (like any other EU employer). They give you 0.75x the money they themselves would spend to employ you while covering the taxes, tell you to deal with it yourself, and wrap it in cellophane with "hey but you're saving so much on the taxes!". Of course completely ignoring that you, the employee living in your EU country, are the one who actually benefits from them.
> requiring you to set up a "small one-person business"
At least the german tax office will take notice of such pseudo self-employments and act accordingly. Not a great idea.
What are you implying? The structure for contracting or consultancy in Ireland and most of Western Europe is exactly that - setup a one-person LLC or act as a sole-trader
https://pjf.ie/business-sole-trader-vs-limited-company/
Agree. These are insane
Be careful what you wish for, unless you want tech oligarchs messing with your governments as well.
We have some of that already.
Murdoch, famously, owns UK politics.
So low salaries in Europe are because they lack oligarchs?
Low Salaries in Europe are because of progressive tax regimes leading to extremely low wealth inequality and far higher social cohesion.
It's like when agitators use the comparable GDPs of Bavaria and Mississippi as a KPI indicating Europe's lack of economic prowess. In fact, it's just a scathing indictment of wealth inequality in Mississippi where life expectancy is 10 years less and infant mortality 400% higher than in Bavara, despite their similar GDPs.
Concentration of economic power generally leads to concentration of political power (ie non-democracy). There are tons of pathways, eg campaign finance, lobbying, media ownership, threat of capital flight, regulatory capture, to name a few.
I'm not agreeing with the parent comment, but I've long held the opinion that one of the the reasons the US is so much more economically successful than Europe is because businesses have so much more influence over government.
This is viewed negatively in general (perhaps rightly), but I think it does provide some balance between the incentives of wealth creation and workers. For example, here in the UK we'll happily regulate entire sectors of the economy out of business every year, but in the US attempts to do this would be met with huge multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns.
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