Staffs and Permanents, even Fellows are by and large from Western Europe. In particular senior staff positions (ie. decision making). Just look at any orgchart in any division.
Which makes sense given that these countries contribute the most to the funding of CERN.
Then we both agree, that jobs are not awarded accorging to the matter of needs, neither merit for that matter. It is about the most funding, which is self-selecting in the long tradition of Western European capital concentration: the first among equals. Makes sense, but contradictory to any publicly stated charter (be it CERN or EU).
It's not what I said. They are pretty explicit about how the selection is done btw https://jobs.web.cern.ch/content/recruitment-policy
/out
It often does sucks if you work at CERN for some university, the salary then depends on their rates, and often you don't know where you will be in 2 years, but you still get UNICA + no taxes...
Then the problem is that getting a staff or permanent position is very hard, then again CERN cannot hire half the world, it's a matter of needs, From what I witnessed most people just take CERN as a stepping stone and move on, unless you're one of the lucky few to get a staff (and you're ok with gambling 5 years to get a permanent).