In Europe they've probably gone down the past decade I'd say.
Outside of the technology hubs like London dev salaries have gone up significantly, largely due to developers being able to work remotely for companies in the technology hubs. I imagine that's a large part of what's exerting downward pressure on wages in those areas.
(And no, "cheap medicine" and "cheap education" do not exactly cover the difference, at least for software engineers).
The fact is, the Nordics are de-facto the best place in the world to be below average. They're not a great value if your skills offer you above-average earning potential.
Sure, your QOL might be similar while working. But in the US, you can retire by 45 on a FAANG salary (even with a family!). That's virtually impossible on the entire continent of Europe as a salaryman.
Common idea but in IT it's absolutely possible to retire by 30 in several EU countries. Bulgaria, Romania and it might take more time but you can add Poland and several more to that list. Sure it's not Western Europe but then again the US is not just SV.
The only thing most people outside don't talk about when it comes to Poland is our insanely terrible and corrupted government, lack of teachers, nurses, doctors, much higher inflation recently, regressing in women's rights, bad air quality in most big cities etc. Public healthcare is in so bad state that you need to go private anyway to get anything done. Also half of our society is still really religious, close minded and anti-west, it's slowly changing but Poland is still pretty hard place to live, f.e. for LGBT people. All those things are stopping me from actually commiting to staying in Poland, besides having my family I hate almost everything about this country.
You can get a good stable salary in Amsterdam and have a great life...
Since I don't, I choose to live in a poor country instead of a Western European country. Bought a flat for $100k, spend about $1k per month, and when I am able to find work I put 90% of it into savings.
Counterexample: Zurich, Switzerland.
Most of those countries were below living standards/salaries of western europe while having for some of them a very strong education system. Romania for instance trains a lot of good devs/it ops. All this qualified workforce can work in any country of europe. Add to this qualified workforce from syria/turkey for germany, North Africa for france and you see that while European companies did not grow like the US one, the pool of talent they can grab is larger than ever. the cake became smaller and Europe did everything it could toblock ambitious tech companies to grow and use the stock market as a wealth tool. they don't even understand that they operate in a global market and that if they tax or limit growth in their own country then the companies will move out. Dublin and Amsterdam for instance became hubs for this reason.
There is also the perception in the old world that being a "Techie" is like being a white collar factory worker. Developers are definitly not considered as stars in Europe. Most of the engineers in europe that want to make money work for an american company.
From my experience, most of engineers in Europe who want to make money work are contracting. Contracting money can be similar to what the FAANGs offer here (outside of Switzerland), but taxes are often lower and you don't have to debase yourself with multistage leetcode interviews and intracompany promotion games.
However, the US companies may start to up their game here salary-wise - I was recently contacted by a recruiter of a Tier 2 US tech company who said that the TC for a tech lead position in their branch in Poland is around 220k EUR. I hope this is a part of a larger trend.
This! Contracting is the way if your country of residence has low taxes for freelancers, but if its' the same or higher as a FTE then it sucks.
"Look at how much more freedom we give capital than the rest of Europe!" etc.
No it's not. We still earn above average and (very) generally life in Europe are not grim.
just to give you an idea: MIDTOWN next to bryant park 1 400 000k$ https://ibb.co/m4bPcXR
decent location in paris (definitely not top tier like next to Bryant park) 1 300 000 Euros https://ibb.co/kx8BXh2
why every time we say life became harder/more expensive we get comments saying its not that grim? this is how it starts. first steps are to reduce government benefits (retirement age further, unemployement benefits shorter,...-
In many larger cities, central locations are ridiculously expensive. Once you get further away from the center, prices drop quickly. Because the society is less car-centric, location has a bigger impact on home prices than in the US.
Second, the problem seems to be chasing the hottest job markets. Those places are often unaffordable, because there is too much money floating around. They are good for people near the top, who can get very high compensation, as well as those near the bottom, who are happy to accept any job. People in the middle often find better deals in places with fewer opportunities and lower costs of living.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-07-27/americ....
once you remove a country frontier, the market forces that are leashed to that country will be destroyed. radically transforming the country economy in ways that no one in this country but the 1% will benefit.