* Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly. The bonus is taxed at a lower marginal rate (6%, no social security contribution, IIRC, vs 37.5% lowest marginal rate).
* There is no fixed minimum wage in Austria. Instead, there is a collective bargaining system, which sets minimum salaries for each industry. Within each industry there are defined categories of jobs, education and levels of experience, along with minimum employment contract conditions and payment for each. This has some bizarre consequences, such that equivalent jobs (e.g. secretary) have different minimum wages in different industries.
* Employers are required to pay a lot of social security/tax on top of what the employees themselves pay. (just checked this: 21.83% social security, communal tax 3%, about 6% other "social" contributions according to http://www.gruendungswissen.at/gruendungswissen/blog-post/20... )
* Employees are almost impossible to fire. If that programmer ends up doing negative work, he's going to be on your books for a while.
I've never been anything but self-employed in Austria (we get screwed in entirely different ways) but culturally I think there is an expectation that you won't negotiate on your salary. This is further reinforced by the built-in graduated minimum pay: why permit the employee to negotiate a raise if they'll legally be due a raise anyway?