The top talent is in the US, Taiwan, etc. designing the 3nm plants, operating the 5nm plants, doing research, etc.
Why would a 600k$/year engineer relocate from the US to Germany for a 300k$ salary pay cut ?
I've always made more money at my next job than the previous one.
If a company wants me to leave my life here behind and move 15000km, they better offer me more, like 700k$ or 800k$. In Germany, that would cost the company 1.6 million $ yearly.
Also you assume they are a) happy to stay in the US b) have no immigration issues to deal with c) don't have a crazy CoL on SV that eats most of that 500k...
Yes, it's not a clear-cut move, but not too bad neither. Salary is not everything.
We're already down a notch. People tend to assume $1 = 1€ in this thread.
There are lots of ways to pay fewer taxes in the US when holding stocks. Plus you have 401k, backdoor Roth, etc. retirement saving plans that are non-existent in Germany.
Mega backdoor Roth is an even bigger thing:
But they need the ability to "level up" (by working with already existing high tech). And then they leave for the US anyway heh.
For example, Bosch has a research campus in california to try to achieve this.
The problem is, that after being 2 years in the US "becoming top talent", you now have the option of staying there making $$$ or coming back to germany.
Even companies like Bosch that invest a lot of money in these types of systems, have huge problems making competitive offers for the people that consider going back.
Why don't you pay 600k$ gross then, they get 300k$ net, and thus 3x what they'd get otherwise in Germany, but don't have to move to the US? Seems like a feasible strategy to me.