[npc_anon]

All these takes on European workers being too shielded are nonsense.

First of all, they're greatly exaggerated. The specific case of a large German company that is union connected doing layoffs is cherry picked. It's basically the most shielded situation possible but far from the norm in Europe as a whole.

I'm from the Netherlands myself. Up until COVID we were on a path where employers were pushing everybody into flex contracts. It's a fixed length contract (1 year with a 3 month trial period) that may or may not be extended.

Maximum flexibility for employers, minimum job security for employees.

Did this lead to some spur in growth or innovation? No.

Europe's problem isn't related to worker conditions. It's a silly thing to say considering ludicrous US tech salaries.

Silicon Valley is the result of gigantic amounts of excess (Wall street?) capital creating a tech Valhalla. A black hole ecosystem swallowing money and talent domestic and abroad. Europe doesn't have this capital and the capital we do have we probably put in US tech stocks.

It's a similar problem to US manufacturing vs Shenzen manufacturing. The Chinese government as well as many Western companies invested decades and hundreds of billions into making it the state-of-the-art factory of the world.

Once it's in place you can't replicate it.