[PeterisP]

While that's technically true also in EU, the salaries are quite directly comparable, because these benefits are a much smaller portion of total compensation than in USA, as the difference between e.g. no employer-provided health insurance and very good extra health insurance is simply not that much money in EU, and also because similar job roles offer a roughly similar level of benefits.

Like, if I'm comparing two offers, the difference in money value of the benefits provided by the best offer and the worst offer (let's assume that apart from some fancy words they're really providing the bare minimum required by EU law) is going to be at most something like 10% of the compensation - but the difference in offered salary may easily be much, much more than that.

Sure, things like performance-determined pay/bonuses may be a big part of the total compensation in some areas (e.g. sales) but not as much as in USA, and benefits even less so; in EU market generally the contracted amount is not that far from the total compensation.