The "immigration floodgates" is by far not the biggest cause of it. Forget developers, engineer salaries are pretty bad across the board compared to the US. Managers, on the other hand, are doing much better.
It's not different for managers. An L6 manager at Amazon for example will make around USD$170k total comp in Munich while new Seattle offers sit at $380k or more.
You will take at least a 55% pay cut -- and that's just pre-tax. Now consider Germany's 44% effective tax rate versus Seattle's 32% effective tax rate. The chasm gets even wider.
You get the double hit of massively reduced salaries and massive increased taxes.
How about purchasing power? Even more bad news. Local purchasing power in Munich is 40% lower than Seattle. Yet another hit.
Don't forget Germany recently also hiked their sales tax to 19%(!!!), which is almost double Seattle.
The higher you get on the seniority ladder, the worse the comparisons get. You can't get the equivalent of US$500k without being an executive, or for extreme outliers. US$500k is garden variety staff level in most top tier US companies.
Work just as hard as your US counterparts for a MASSIVELY reduced rate. Over 10 years, you've lost literally millions of dollars.
> Don't forget Germany recently also hiked their sales tax to 19%(!!!), which is almost double Seattle.
Not sure I would say that 2007 is that recent anymore (when it was increased from 16 to 19 percent ()). Also keep in mind that the EU minimum regular sales rate is 15% and only 4 countries in the EU have a lower sales tax than Germany.
Most are above 20% with the highest being 27%.
Also there is a second reduced sales tax rate for life-essentials (food for instance), which is 7% in Germany.
() Unless you count the half year 2020 where they temporarily reduced it back down to 16%/5%..
I meant the engineer to manager salary ratio is worse than it is in the US - managers make nearly twice the money for a given level of experience.
Afaik the gap is not as bad in the US, but I may be wrong?
Engineers turned managers would actually be fine, but we're talking traditionally educated managers who are often hired separately/brought in from outside.
Needless to say, they're not all that good, especially with modern startups/software businesses. Which plays a part in making Europe suck at them.
You will take at least a 55% pay cut -- and that's just pre-tax. Now consider Germany's 44% effective tax rate versus Seattle's 32% effective tax rate. The chasm gets even wider.
You get the double hit of massively reduced salaries and massive increased taxes.
How about purchasing power? Even more bad news. Local purchasing power in Munich is 40% lower than Seattle. Yet another hit.
Don't forget Germany recently also hiked their sales tax to 19%(!!!), which is almost double Seattle.
The higher you get on the seniority ladder, the worse the comparisons get. You can't get the equivalent of US$500k without being an executive, or for extreme outliers. US$500k is garden variety staff level in most top tier US companies.
Work just as hard as your US counterparts for a MASSIVELY reduced rate. Over 10 years, you've lost literally millions of dollars.