[renaudg]

With a few exceptions, French employers are not the problem, they do pay the same price for you as in other European countries, more or less ! The difference is that your average engineer in France costs them around 1.5-2.5 times the total take home pay, because of high, compulsory labor taxes.

In exchange, employees get as standard :

* a top notch, virtually free healthcare system with no concept of exclusions or "pre-conditions"

* Usually no student loans to repay because their higher education was free, unless they went for a private business/engineering school but that's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a US university.

* a comfortable (unsustainable ?) state pension later on.

* unemployment insurance that covers around 70% pay for months.

* 5 weeks holiday + public holidays

If you're US-based, think about your monthly budget and what goes towards healthcare/co-pay, student loans, kids college fund, 401k, and building an emergency fund in case you get laid off / severely ill. None of that is strictly required in France (although some of it is available as extra private coverage, and a good idea)

This is why cross-border salary comparisons are pointless, it's really apples & oranges.

I'm French and living in London, and I'd personally rather have the freedom to have a higher take-home pay and contribute towards the above items myself as I see fit. But I'm not fooling myself thinking that because my take-home pay is twice as high each month, the math is as simple as that. I know that I'm so much more on my own here than at home...

[jseliger]

Interesting post. That being said, point one isn't that important for most young healthy people. Point three is in the distant future: I'd rather have a dollar today than one forty years from now. Point four is not very important for highly paid engineers.

Point two may be the most interesting one: for a given individual, it may make the most sense to get high-quality French education and then go out and earn high-end American wages that are keyed to U.S. education costs.

In short, France may be facing an arbitrage problem. People who are sick, old, or receiving educations have high incentives to stay. People who are young, healthy, and have already received educations have incentives to go where they can earn more today.

[renaudg]

Absolutely,

And short of counting on the young & healthy expats' patriotism and sense of duty (or going the US route and taxing citizens on their worldwide income) the only way out for France is to make itself slightly more attractive to net contributors / high earners again, by cutting taxes & benefits slightly, so that balance is restored.

But people and organizations on the receiving end of welfare will hear none of it and don't understand they're killing the golden goose. They'd much rather see a citizenship-based tax obligation like the US has (oddly, as it's a very socialist idea)

[drzaiusapelord]

This a million times. Tech entrepreneurship works in the US and fails in other states because we're in this sweet spot of low taxes and low corruption, with high levels of education and easy access to a large and powerful economy.

Euro states have most of the above, but the high taxation and labor protections strangles little shops and scares investors (would you invest in a French startup? I wouldn't). Corrupt autocracies might have some of the above, but the corruption strangles these companies as well (invest in a startup where the assets could be nationalized instantly? Or having to pay a % of profits to endless bribes?)

[WildUtah]

"Tech entrepreneurship works in the US and fails in other states because we're in this sweet spot of low taxes and low corruption, with high levels of education and easy access to a large and powerful economy."

Corruption in the USA is typical for west Europe or NE Asia and taxes plus health care costs are slightly higher in the USA. Education levels are the same or lower than typical in Europe and NE Asia. None of that is essential in creating whatever advantage the USA has in tech entrepreneurship.

Labor 'protections' can strangle startups and a large economy with unified rules, unified payment systems, a common language, and unified distribution does help. But something about Silicon Valley in particular seems to be at the root of the difference.

[digikata]

CA has relatively high taxes and labor protections vs other US states and it seems to do ok. I'd say that Euro nations have most of your list, but a high level of bureaucracy regarding business licensing and a conservative business climate (hesitancy to do commerce with new businesses).

America loves the new and shiny. In particular, the culture in CA is more than open to new ideas, often actively seeking newness. And I think that is at the root of the difference.

[UK-AL]

I think his comparing startup vs established.