Cost-of-living is high, but salaries are higher. I regularly check the Numbeo comparison to a city like Munich [0] and the results are still the same: Given a Munich salary of X, you earn more than 2 * X in Zurich, and spend less than 2 * X. At the end of the month, you're left with alpha * (2 * X) where alpha is a percentage value based on your thriftiness. So even if you are just as thrifty as in Germany, you are still left with double the savings at the end of the month.
From what I've heard of the job market relationship between Canada and the US, Germany and Switzerland seem to be in similar shoes. Brain drain towards Switzerland/US because the salaries in Germany/Canada aren't terrible, just terrible compared what you could earn in a neighboring country.
Apart from that, I would be curious to hear if Germany is suffering the same cognitive dissonance in media that we get here in Switzerland: Somehow, there are never enough candidates to fill all positions in the Software sector, but neither salaries nor perks are increasing. In my experience, companies insist on moving away from WFH in favor of having everyone come to the office again with a complete lack of empathy that that could even be considered unattractive.
One notable company I talked to said that for all their teams of ~5 employees, the 1-2 per team based in Switzerland would have to commute into Zurich, while the other 3-4 would work remotely from Bangalore and Romania. When I pointed out that at that point, surely the Swiss employees should be able to work remotely as well, I was told that was not an option.
[0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...