I’m a hiring manager with a global team. Yes salaries for Europeans are generally much lower than USA employees. Except Switzerland. They’re getting paid similarly to people in the more expensive parts of the USA.

There’s a few reasons why EU compensation is so low. One is it’s expensive to hire a person in the EU. We have to pay a lot in taxes on the employees behalf. They never see this on their check stub - it’s paid as part of a payroll tax. We have these in the USA as well but much lower and parts of it phase out as the employee earns more. Keep in mind that the USA employee may have to cover certain things like part of their health care though.

Secondly it’s far more difficult to get rid of an EU employee. We can of course, but it can be more expensive.

People make more in the USA and it’s a reason a lot of people from EU/UK come here to work in professional roles. Lower taxes and lower costs of employing someone send the money to the employee. But also a lot of the covered benefits (health, pension, etc) the USA employee has to cover themselves out of their pay (pre-tax though). So in part it’s a visibility thing too.