When you have a much better social safety net, work-life balance and in general can expect to be treated like a human and not a work-battery to be used up and discarded, people are satisfied with much less money.

Should they maybe instead just try that in the US? Nah, of course not.

Yeah, but you still have to pay social taxes on top for every worker. That's why salary and labour cost are two different things. And boy is it a difference in Germany.

Compared to Valley workers, Germans are still cheap.

So is West Virginia or Oklahoma.

But salary does not equal labour cost.

Take home or total cost?

For instance, is there a pension to be funded with costs not included in that 100k?

I don't think Google pays significantly less in other US cities.

Besides, the kind of people who has the right experience to be hired by Google isn't cheap.

Employers in Germany have to bear half of the mandatory social security contributions.
This is on top of gross salary and includes mandatory health insurance.

That was my first thought.