Europe has long demonstrated that it's uninterested in competing in the economy of the 21st century. This is exactly in keeping with everything else they've done.
In the US, the basic approach is to talk about all the great stuff that your company is doing. In Europe, many suppliers are happy to white-label, if you pay for it.
So when you read from an international company bragging about "their" new products without mentioning employees, chances are that they just licensed it from an outside contractor. There's lots of small high-tech contracting firms all over Europe. It's just that they don't want the (potentially negative) attention that comes with being famous.