[FirmwareBurner]

>it’s also employers being lazy, they absolutely can take on the burden of paying someone in a different country as an employee

It's less about being lazy and more about the financial, law and tax overhead that comes with legally employing someone in another EU country as a FTE, as in most cases it means opening up a subsidiary/legal entity in that country which means another country who's laws you have to comply with. Not a huge issue for large enterprises which are already present in most countries anyway, but a big problem for small and medium sized companies. Unlike when doing business, a single EU legal entity is not enough to hire people remotely, you need a presence in each country where your workforce resides.

>I work for a US based company in Iceland and they pay me as a FTE here and have done/do so in multiple other European countries.

May I ask how? Did your employer open up an Iceland entitty or did they use some employer of record?