Estonia has for quite some time tried to establish itself as a "Startup HQ" for startups both in Estonia and from the world outside of Estonia. As a result, Estonia has the 3rd highest startups-per-capita compared to other countries in Europe.
People in the startup sector earn _much_ more than other sectors - the difference is, if I'm not wrong, one of the biggest in the EU. So it creates a) a lot of inequality and b) drives up prices of certain goods (houses, apartments) because there's a noticeable % of the population in the startup sector who has now their sweet exit money that's looking for a new home.
Do you have a source for this claim?
I would be very surprised if that was true.
> as where I live (Austria) start-up exists don't move the needle at all.
I totally believe this as the "% of people who are employed by a startup that has made an exit" is vastly different in Austria vs Estonia.
The total population of Estonia is so small that all exit events stand out. This year, there have been about 40 houses sold in the city I live in (pop 100k) [1]. From that only 7 are newer than 20 years. 7. Meanwhile, there are tens of people here who have been part of at least some kind of exit event during the same period and who are now actively looking for their first house. No other event in any other industry generates a sudden need for new real estate. At least not here in Estonia. There's a) extremely limited supply and b) a massive price increase due to extreme increase in demand (well, "extreme" in the local context)
That's why I said you live in a different bubble.
So here's an anecdote instead :) Sweden. Average salary 36100SEK, average "Software- and system developers" salary 46500SEK. So a software dev earns ~30% more than the average salary. [1]
Estonia. Average salary 1576EUR. average "Software developer" salary 3753EUR. So a software dev earns ~140% more than the average salary [2]
Now I didn't find an official source for "% of people employed in the startup sector" for both countries but my guess is that it's much bigger in Estonia than in Sweden (based on [3]) and that's the reason for my overall pessimistic view that the startup scene here in Estonia is one of the biggest causes of income inequality in the EU (and I'm saying this as a person living in the startup bubble in Estonia myself)
[1] https://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/pxweb/en/ssd/START__AM...
You are probably aware that IT startups require engineers. And in Estonia there's only one tech university with a very arguable level of education.
Working in this field for decades, can assure you that for recent years Estonia made a huge progress in importing engineers from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Those high-quality engineers actually made it the Startup HQ of Baltics.
As for now, the immigration policy does not permit any work visas for Russian or Belarusian citizens, so this flow is depleted. Ukrainians have stopped coming here few years ago as salary levels were higher in Kyiv and it made no sense in coming to Tallinn. Today they just can't leave the country.
The biggest motivator for engineers from mentioned countries to come to Tallinn was the big Russian-speaking community, which made it "live in Europe, speak in native language" for them. As of today, the pressure on Russian language based education is extremely big, and having kids you want to teach in native language, coming to Estonia for Russian-speaking developers makes no more sense .