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Comment by yurishimo | Hacker News Reader

As a knowledge worker who immigrated to the Netherlands in 2022 and also lives in Eindhoven, these insights and discussions are super interesting to me. Unlike most of my nearby expat peers, I didn't move here to work at ASML or Philips, but now that I'm here, it's undeniable; the appeal of working for such companies is huge.

Obviously, companies want to make money, but the goals of the government have somewhat been at odds with funding growth and innovation in this sector because of some resentment on the ground from citizens. Tax legislation is all over the place and it's becoming more and more expensive to hire experts from around the world. I understand the sentiment to start hiring at home, but at a certain point, you have to take stock of what is available and get to work with what tools you have. Invest in education for your local population (lots of cuts in the past two decades) but don't punish individuals and companies trying to get work done and benefit your economy.

The infrastructure is basically all in place for Europe to foster its own Silicon Valley, with homegrown production to boot!, but it will come down to politics to make it a reality. These goals are good baby steps, but they need to ramp up quick if the EU is serious about becoming a global competitor.

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Nah, I don't see Europe producing their own silicon valley - EU has over-regulated and a fragmented market. Too many regulations lead to less enterprises, while fragmentation (Germany, France, etc. with their own regulations + language barriers) prevents companies from growing big in their home soil.

Anecdotally, I feel like Sweden produces more startups that grow large worldwide. I presume, they have less regulations in place + English is more widespread I guess.

> I presume, they have less regulations in place

Why would you presume that? Working back from wrong assumptions and biases is never a good idea.

It's still true. Or, the regulations are at least efficiently enforced in Sweden, unlike in most countries in the EU. Inefficient, corrupt, or arbitrary bureaucracies are surprisingly common.

Do you have any sources or proof of that or are you working back from biases?

There are no "backwards bureaucracy" index, unfortunately, but that's what I hear. Sweden has a smooth system. To be fair, that seems to be common in Scandinavia. Germany is a mess for sure. Have heard nothing good about Spain/Italy. France seems to have a problem with powerful individual bureaucrats. Anyway, if you want something slightly more systematic, look at the Ease of Doing Business rankings, but keep in mind that it's constructed based on how the bureaucracies are supposed to work (legislation, etc.), not the actual experience of those using them.

Germany is a huge mess. Especially their constant desire to request paper copies left and right for everything.

There is an easy way to (statistically) double the amount of successful startups in Europe by almost any metric: include Israel in the count.

Why not include the US too while you're at it? Israel isn't in Europe.

I'd love to see the map they used in your geography class.

Depending on the metric, including Israel wouldn't even double the number compared to London, let alone the whole UK, _let alone_ all of Europe.

But I wrote "successful startups"...

Define "successful startups" and we can get some figures going.

> Anecdotally, I feel like Sweden produces more startups that grow large worldwide.

Yet, they are also part of the EU.

> don't punish individuals and companies trying to get work done and benefit your economy

Getting work done is one thing, why should locals support tax breaks for expats?

"Technology companies including ASML Holding NV and Adyen NV called on the Dutch government to maintain a tax break that seeks to attract expatriates to the Netherlands.

Ingrid Thijssen, head of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers, said the government for budget reasons is considering shrinking or scrapping a rule that exempts 30% of an expat’s salary from income tax for five years."[0]

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-06/dutch-tec...

As a local I support this. Simply because having more smart people eventually benefits Dutch society and the long term is far more important than the short term. Usually this argument is based in some for of jealousy, but consider: an expat gives up their current life to chance it all on another, has stupendously high private costs if they want to keep up with their family and has to start all over again from scratch which also carries a lot of costs. Giving them a five year tax break seems like a smart thing to do to me.

Another supportive argument (especially for Europe, maybe not US) is that those knowledge workers have spent a considerable time, money, and effort to acquire that talent/skill-set, and unlike your own citizen your country spent *zero* euro paying for that.

Most European countries have heavy tax but very protective social services, including free education and universal healthcare, which only works because there's an expectation that when you come of age, you'll support the same system . So every citizen before turning adult (or paying taxes) are a net-debtor for society as a whole. Knowledge worker expats start at zero debt for you.

Worst thing for countries like this is if its citizen get educated there and the best talent just moves to greener pasture (SV etc).

If one can let go of their jealousy and see things practically, some tax incentive makes sense, but should be done smartly (not to cover rich people buying their way in while contributing zero long-term)

>some tax incentive makes sense, but should be done smartly (not to cover rich people buying their way in while contributing zero long-term)

Yeah, it should be tied to your job. If you work for a local tech company in a highly-skilled position requiring a lot of education and experience, then you get a big tax break. If you're just some rich person living off of investments, or you're a digital nomad working for a US company remotely, then forget it.

> there's an expectation that when you come of age, you'll support the same system

I think this is the wrong way to look at it. You are looking at it from an individual perspective. I think it's better to look at it from the perspective of the society as a whole.

Free education isn't a gift to an individual that they need to pay back. Free education is an investment into society. Society as a whole benefits from the fact that there are now well educated people around.

You don't pay taxes to pay back the education you received. You pay taxes to support the society you live in. If you want to live here, you need to pay your share, and how much you personally benefitted in the past or in the future should not affect how much you have to pay.

I'm not looking from an individual perspective, but a balance-sheet perspective.

It's all lovey-dovey to see Free education as an investment and all, but at the end of the day, it's the accountant that will scratch his head looking at the red number on the balance sheet.

I share your idealism that education is more than just economics/investment and you shouldn't think how much you paid vs how much you receive, but when push comes to shove, and the accountant is knocking on your door in panic because the number have been red for decades, you have to face the reality and make (hopefully rational) hard decisions. And that's the part I'm talking about.

You can put your head in the sand and decades down the line to create a crisis like that of Greece, or you can see that to keep this system, you need to be smart and see things for what it is, and adapt the rules around it (such as incentivizing individuals, including from abroad, that is a net-contributor to want to come) while not losing the ideal.

But everyone having your ideal is fine by me. I'm the guy that got a free education(even paid) up to a Masters degree and moved country right after.

How exactly does that benefit the country outside driving up the cost of living for locals (which can't afford rents, houses or other services), since they actually have to pay taxes and are outbid by foreigners which don't really contribute that much to the tax base or have any intention of staying beyond the time in which they extract maximum wealth?

> driving up the cost of living for locals.

That means they are spending a lot of money they earn on the local economy itself no? So even if their taxes are higher, if they are creating value in the economy, the locals do end up seeing those benefits imo.

From the perspective of a someone in country that loses a lot of talented/educated citizens to brain drain, If i were in charge of a country to which high skilled immigrants flock to - even if it is for a limited time, I'd try to see what I can do to convert them to permanent residents. It is a tricky thing to balance because the locals shouldn't feel like second class citizens in their own lands. But at the same time, if skilled people are migrating away - that's a lot of missed potential/opportunity.

What kind of money are they spending?

Besides money directly transferred to wealth land owners via rents, some service owners, the rest goes back to savings to be spend after leaving the country. How are most netherlanders actually benefiting here?

Land owners do end up paying tax on all the money they earn no? And if people are living in a country, they still tend to spend at least 50-60% of it in the local economy itself. (Anecdotal numbers based on expat friends' spending there).

So the expats spend their home country resources for 20-25 years to get educated and be qualified enough to leave it and contribute to a different country's economy, taxes. Now the host country didn't spend any of it's resources in it's education, nor will it contribute to their healthcare - which typically becomes a burden only once they are older, by when they'd have left the country. Still seems like a net positive to me. Just can't put a number on it though. (wrt the 30% tax benefit).

So basically you're making living for locals unaffordable to trade of for tiny amount of taxes from expats and tiny amount of landowner taxes (which are avoided if possible via tax avoidance schemes)?

Sounds like a terrible tradeoff, isn't it?

I also don't get your focus on education, this is Europe, not US where college costs 200.000EUR per person, the aggregate education costs don't even come close to tax breaks.

> So basically you're making living for locals unaffordable to trade of for tiny amount of taxes from expats and tiny amount of landowner taxes (which are avoided if possible via tax avoidance schemes)?

Living for locals getting expensive is because of higher paying jobs - whether or not it is the immigrants who are helping build those industries - no? What is stopping local realtors building more affordable housing for more people? Imo. these immigrants are just accelerating the process of those industries being built.

And I meant more than just taxes. Expat friends of mine are spending 50-60% of their income in the local economy itself. So even if they are getting taxed at 20-30% lower rate for the first 5 years, they probably spent a lot more than the missing 20-30% taxes to gain the skills needed to move there. Do keep in mind that the employers won't be hiring them and moving them from elsewhere if they are not generating more revenue than they are taking in.

The people that hire expats are usually Dutch. Ask them why they hire expats, why they even make booths on other countries and do cold-calls (emails, linkedin) to convince them to go to NL. They're the ones with the answer of where the benefits are going to.

Why them and only them? And why should I "go somewhere" to ask questions instead of asking you in the hive mind why are you defending this? :)

> having more smart people eventually benefits Dutch society

Given that most of them don't stay for even five years[0], how does their temporary presence benefit society?

[0] "80% of expat employees use the facility for 5 years or less" https://www.government.nl/topics/income-tax/shortening-30-pe...

It's they stay that short, how much do they tend to rely on taxable benefits?

Someone who stays a few years at the peak of above average earnings might well be highly economically beneficial even at a steep tax discount.

I don't think governments ought to compete on tax in general, but this is one where it might both be a net benefit and there is the arguable case that most tax systems are geared towards people in working age overpaying to compensate for the cost of caring for children and the elderly.

Someone who comes temporarily during working age without a discount will get the downside without the benefit.

This will be a bigger problem for the competitive ability in places with comprehensive social support mechanisms.

Given dropping birth rates, trying to offset that to be an attractive place to immigrate to may well be worth it even if most leave again - especially as long as it's profitable too.

But if your concern is that it doesn't attract people who will stay, maybe there are ways to incentivise that too. E.g. let people earn a discount where a portion does not pay out unless they stay longer.

Having a foreigner stay in the long term could be worse, economically. Five years of taxation on highly-paid individuals - who are presumably producing far more than their salary to the companies paying them - is essentially free money for the country. You did not spend tax money on their education so far and are reaping all the benefits.

Now, if they stay permanently, you will have to pay their pensions and healthcare, which are very expensive.

> You did not spend tax money on their education so far and are reaping all the benefits

That is one possibility.

Another is that the foreigner may have got the job instead of it going to a local. It's also possible that as a result of that the local may be unemployed and hence costing the country money.

In my experience Europe has a dramatic shortage of highly skilled workers, in technology and healthcare in particular. There are simply not enough qualified workers.

I also believe that the economy is not a zero sum game where there is a finite number of jobs. If the Netherlands suddenly absorbed 20k Silicon Valley workers, they would not simply replace 20k local workers. One of them might even create a company that ends up employing that amount of people.

>Another is that the foreigner may have got the job instead of it going to a local.

The birth rate is falling and well below replacement level already, and talent shortages are well-known to be a problem. It's too late to worry about protecting the jobs of locals.

> It's too late to worry about protecting the jobs of locals

What does one offer to locals to show them that they matter? Remember that all locals - even if they are poor or unemployed - have a vote.

If one washes one's hands of an entire group one should not be surprised the next time an election comes round if the outcome is a form of protest.

The Netherlands already voted for a Eurosceptic, invoking similar rhetoric as you here - "replacement" of locals by foreigners, taking their jobs, etc. Interestingly, as is almost always the case in Europe, the places with fewer immigrants voted more harshly against them.

The question we should ask is whether this is rational or not. I think not. If the Dutch want to vote themselves into a Brexit, then so be it - the foreigners will go elsewhere, trade barriers will be erected to "protect" the local economy, and time will tell who will be ahead economically and culturally.

> as is almost always the case [..] the places with fewer immigrants voted more harshly against them

Well, the very opposite of that happened in the UK regarding the Brexit referendum:

"More than 50 per cent of the population growth in Lincolnshire in the last decade has been caused by immigration. Across the county, population growth has been 57,999, with 30,568 due to immigration - a total of 52.7 per cent."

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/new-figur...

"More than three quarters of the people of Boston, in the county of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of England, voted to leave the EU. According to the most recent U.K. census in 2011, Boston also has the highest proportion of eastern European immigrants of anywhere in the U.K., after an influx of EU workers to the area’s agricultural sector, earning it the label of Britain’s “most divided town.” Between 2004 and 2014, the town’s migrant population grew by 460%, and the proportion of residents of the Borough of Boston born in EU accession countries such as Lithuania, Poland and Latvia, stands at around 12%."

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/28/in-boston-britains-most-pro-...

> The question we should ask is whether this is rational or not.

To vote a particular way in the hope of change? Why wouldn't that be rational?

Hope of change isn't rational because it more than likely will be change for the worse, not change for the better. The idea that a demagogue is going to come along and as a strong man solve all of your problems is infantile at best and irresponsible at worst. Those that vote in wannabe dictators will get exactly what they deserve.

The main issue with populism and why people fall for it is a reliance on narratives over facts. If we discuss consolidated data instead of an anecdote, the conclusion is quite clear, and it shows that you are wrong: https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-areas-with-low...

> To vote a particular way in the hope of change? Why wouldn't that be rational?

There are plenty of historical examples of people voting for "change" that ended up backfiring wildly. I think you could find quite a few of those in the same ideological spectrum of people like Wilders.

> If the Dutch want to vote themselves into a Brexit, then so be it - the foreigners will go elsewhere, trade barriers will be erected to "protect" the local economy, and time will tell who will be ahead economically and culturally.

And plenty of locals will go elsewhere too. I for one. The morons that effected Brexit should be enough of an example that any other EU country that wants to go the same route has been amply warned about what that will do your country. It's amazing that so many people are utterly blind but then again, live long enough and nothing really surprises you any more.

Exactly where would you go? It's not like there's a lot of nice, developed nations on par with Netherlands that you can just pick up and move to. Perhaps some other EU nations, but many of those are electing similar people lately.

I live in a Scandinavian country. Our welfare system is structured such that people are expected to withdraw from the tax pool during the beginning and end of life, and contribute to the pool in between.

Adult immigrants will benefit less from the system than locals over their lifetime, but may end up contributing as much. Adult immigrants with advanced degrees who come to work here for a few years and then move out are penalized quite severely by the tax system, to the point where I think it makes very little sense to do that.

On my locally quite high $80k annual income (STEM PhD, 40yo), my employer pays an additional $36k in taxes and pension. Then I pay $22k in income taxes and 25% VAT on everything I buy.

Why would anyone with an advanced degree from China, India or the U.S. come to work here? Lowering the taxes for a couple of years following immigration, possibly proportionally to level of education, would encourage immigration and would be ethically defensible.

It works. After 6 years, I’m stuck in the Netherlands with a 50% tax rate and I love it.

For love, or if they have autistic children and a way to emigrate.

I did that (moved to a Scandinavian country), and it was an undeniably poor choice from a financial perspective - or rather a chain of poor choices that looked correct at the time. Paying almost 40% of my income that is rather low by global standards (although very high locally), while not planning to have children and never even once going to a doctor - none of this made any sense in the long run. I am the same age as yourself, and given the economic situation early retirement appears to be less and less feasible.

>> locally quite high $80k annual income (STEM PhD, 40yo)

I love Europe, both for the lifestyle and the safety net. But the salaries are kind of shocking for an American.

Healthcare, education and retirement/social security included.

And no tipping !

It's hard to really compare between the countries, but I feel like one should almost x2 an EU salary, to get an US equivalent, in terms of quality of life offered.

Plus, OP makes 6000 euros a month which really is not nothing.

6000 a month is huge by EU standards. Most of EU tech workers make way less than that. In Austria you can expect to take home about 3k a month. More is a rare outlier.

Outside of big-tech and FAANGS, pay in EU is super weak compared to US, like orders of magnitude.

It is huge, but still peanuts considering cost of living and prices for housing.

Many people just gave up to the dream of real estate ownership. Rent till the death.

With 6000 monthly how many years they need to save money for down payment for small apartment? Buying a house is not an option at all for working people.

I don't think that's true. America's home ownership hovers around 65% - in Norway it's 80%; Swedeon 65%; Denmark 59%; Iceland 73%. If anything, a higher percentage of Nordic citizens own houses than Americans.

Someone can live with parents and in statistics they will go into "home owners" bucket. Anyway I'm talking about possibility to buy with current salary and current price. If you like statistics - search for house affordability index.

> Someone can live with parents and in statistics they will go into "home owners" bucket

Funnily enough Nordic populations tend to leave home before Americans, so the American figure is even worse than they look.

Don't just tell people to look up figures - cite them here please, and why they should overrule the figures saying as many or more Nordic people own their homes than Americans.

Yeah but that pay is peanuts. None of that stuff costs even close to enough to justify taking less then half the pay.

Don't get me wrong the safety net component is really nice but as long as the goings good it's a hard sell compared to the USA.

A lot of things that (especially progressive) Americans love about Europe are at least in part financed by those lower salaries.

I work at said company with just a bachelors degree and make (way) more than that. I think its mostly PHD's that are paid shit comparatively to the US, lol. I've heard it's because there's little to no competition. If you have PHD's in certain fields, you can either work at ASML here or do something else unrelated to your PHD.

> I think its mostly PHD's that are paid shit comparatively to the US, lol.

No. The salaries at all levels in Europe are lower than in the US, regardless of a few outliers. That part is indisputable.

Both claims can be true (all salaries lower, PhDs paid poorly).

I don't have a PhD, but from what I've heard in the US, PhDs are paid pretty poorly there too, compared to their level of education and the level of work they do compared to, for instance, a software engineer with a Bachelor's.

Thats exactly my point

Does mcdonalds workers earn more than $20/h in the us? With 5 weeks of paid vacation.

>I work at said company

Which company is that? Parent didn't mention a company.

This may be out of date now, but friends in Singapore told me about their system and it sounded like a good idea.

They have a low base tax rate but permanent residents and citizens have to pay ~20% into a fund. They could withdraw from it to buy housing or for a pension. It could also be withdrawn if you leave Singapore.

It feels like that’s what we need in Europe.

At the very least Sweden has that in place: you can become income tax exempt for the first 5? years as an expert or similar specialist.

For me it's the question about what's inside my house and what's outside on the street. I'd like to pay more tax at the cost of having less inside my house if I know that the street outside is free of rubbish and crime with a suburban library within working distance, etc, etc, etc.

I want my society to be nice because that's where I live. And it's not about the exact amount I add or withdraw from the communal tax pool.

> some resentment on the ground from citizens

In many cases resentment is for low-skilled (or no skills at all) migration. Yet many european governments punish highly-skilled migrants yet don't listen to their citizens regarding actual issues on migration. Loose-loose situation for citizens, companies and governments.

> The infrastructure is basically all in place for Europe to foster its own Silicon Valley, with homegrown production to boot!, but it will come down to politics to make it a reality.

This x1000. Germany, for example, created the worldwide market for solar in the first place with the EEG subsidies, and German companies were technology and market leaders for a long time.

Go for it. They're cutting edge and a good employer too.

Isn't the pay smaller compared to other big companies in NL?

I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly, but if you mean the pay compared to US tech companies active in NL then I would say it depends very much on your specialization.

Engineer: 40k and up, team lead: 70k and up, project manager: 90k and up. I don't have much data on other roles but the 'and up' is the big factor, depends on seniority and specific skills. What really strikes me is that an extremely high fraction of the people that work there speak highly of their employer.

I'm sure Google or FB would pay more, especially if you're prepared to move the USA.

Other 'big companies in NL' can pay crap or good depending very much on the company, the field they are active in and the kind of job you are looking for so that's a bit too generic to do something with. HTH.

> Engineer: 40k and up [...] I'm sure Google or FB would pay more

There's body shops in Eastern Europe that pay more for junior frontend developers...

The 'and up' bit is relevant. I know some people there that do large multiples of that figure.

Minimum wage in the Netherlands is about 26k a year so i sure hope it skews to "and up", you can make 40k at a helpdesk resetting people's passwords.

Primary school teachers make 40k to 72k in the Netherlands.

It doesn't make sense to be a software engineer in that country, unless you prefer looking at a screen all day over working with people.

Whoa I'm a senior enterprise it architect in Spain and I only make 60k lol. The Netherlands standard of living has really accelerated since I left there

That's truly sad if true and up to date. Your top of 70k for a staff engineer is a common senior salary at any software company in DACH area (working on totally boring tech like Salesforce or SAP). If that's for an industry as as unique as chip production, something is very off.

Where did you read top of 70k? He stated 70k and up for a team lead, not a staff engineer. 70k is the bottom for that role. Given the starting point is that for 'just' a team lead, presumably a staff engineer would start much higher, if they have that role.

I agree it's low given even a team lead role, but it depends on how many are on the low end of their pay scale.

Those salaries seem quite low compared to the Randstad. If these are true, then the answer is "Yes"...

Can you name me 3 tech companies in the Randstad that aren't consultancy that pay more than that?

I don't think these numbers are exceptionally high but they're not low either.

Source: Former SWE, current PM in the Randstad.

https://techpays.eu/europe/netherlands

Amsterdam's crypto fintech startups buy the souls of juniors for 73K. Juniors!

I work for the largest ISP (KPN) and started at €43k for my traineeship about 6 years ago. I'm now at €80k.

€40k is way too low, way way too low. People starting out in regular jobs in healthcare or education without too much education already make €45k.

€45k is 'modaal' in 2024, the modal salary for the entire country.

I think your numbers are about 10 years behind reality.

Booking Microsoft Google Amazon Flow Optiver Messagebird

Etc etc etc

I meant not just US comps but Spotify/Booking/etc... Was asking because was reading some comments in the past that the pay is not that competitive

Booking vs ASML? ASML any day. Even though Booking.com is nearby. I don't think what Booking.com does is remotely interesting whereas ASML is driving forward the whole of the semiconductor industry. That's a very easy choice. If it is just about pay then they are roughly comparable depending on your specialty, though Booking has less technical debt.

I understand the 'interestigness' but was asking particularly about the pay, because I've heard asml isn't exactly among the top payers, should research levels.fyi I guess to see for myself

ASML is well known for it's exceptionally high pay compared to other Dutch tech companies.

well, looking at the other comment in this thread, looks like the pay is kinda smaller compared to say Spoti/Booking/similars and not comparable with big tech

Throwaway because this is a touchy subject, but if you've worked/contracted/supplied for ASML the consensus is pretty much: cutting edge on the hardware end of things, hopelessly behind in the software department.

So great if you're a physics PhD, but if you're going in there as a software engineer thinking you'll be working with the latest and greatest, you'll be in for a shock. Not to mention that it's a huge ship that's very difficult to turn around in terms of introducing new technologies or paradigms. It's classic BigCorp politics all the way through.

> hopelessly behind in the software department

Yes, good point, but: because they're behind there is a ton of work to be done. This is where a good chunk of that employment comes from to begin with. Meanwhile their process is cutting edge, they pretty much define the market and that gives working for them opportunities hard to match with other employers in NL.

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