The total amount that the employer pays is apparently around 2.5X—3X of what the employee receives (accounting for the social charges paid to the state etc.). So overall, workers are just as expensive as in US.
Of course, there are a lot of positive things about France and Europe: health care, education, social safety nets, culture, WLB, etc. I didn’t account for those!
2.5x seems really high, but 2x is usual for software engineer salaries and up.
For example, an average software engineer can receive a gross salary of 50 k€ which translate to 34 k€ after social contributions and income taxes (in a worst case scenario) and a total cost of 71 k€ for the company [0].
Using this simulator, I can reach 2.5x by putting in a gross salary of 250 k€. Of course it's mostly because of the high income tax in this case.
There are also strong incentives for startups, most notably reduced social contributions during their first 8 years [1] and tax credit for a third of research expenses [2].
Admittedly, this is probably more complex than needed but I think it is still way less expensive than hiring in the US.
The total amount that the employer pays is apparently around 2.5X—3X of what the employee receives (accounting for the social charges paid to the state etc.). So overall, workers are just as expensive as in US.
Of course, there are a lot of positive things about France and Europe: health care, education, social safety nets, culture, WLB, etc. I didn’t account for those!