Looking at salaries after tax is completely meaningless, what is even this article trying to infer.
You have to take in to account the cost of living and also quality of services you get for it.
France & Sweden is close in the numbers but France is notably cheaper to eat out and Healthcare quality can't even be compared (to French favor). But if you're wealthy you'd probably prefer Sweden still because of the low taxes around wealth.
I recently compared (by actually going there) Switzerland vs Sweden when I passed a FAANG tech interview in Zurich, but even with 4-5x Salary of what I have now, I would probably end up living poorer if I had kids (if more than 2, it's for certain) in Zurich.
In addition (I'm European), I object to the use of per-hour wages instead of monthly salaries. It's less informative in Europe. Most jobs are full-time, salaries are typically advertised and talked about in monthly terms, and the length of the work week varies as well. Per month is just more useful as a comparison point.
Oh and Sweden is slightly ahead of France on the latest EHCI. Sweden scores near the bottom on accessibility (as is tradition, same thing 10 and 15 years ago even) but ranks highly overall and especially on outcomes, so I take issue with the assertion that French healthcare is much better.
I am interested in learning more about EHCI?
I found this link from 2018. It gave high scores to Switzerland and Northern Europe. France and Germany were the middle of the pack?
I live in a country from the bottom of this ranking and can confirm from personal experience. Nothing works, people die, and still it's very expensive.
Taxes in Switzerland are generally quite a bit lower than in other European countries. However mandatory health insurance is not included as a tax in Switzerland and is one of the highest expenditures for regular folks and yes, cost of living is also generally very high. Specifically in urban areas (Geneva, Zürich etc.) but also in tax haven cantons (Zug, Schwyz etc.), because you pay a premium for housing/rent there.
Child tax credits are varied as well and generally too low (IMO), maternity/paternity leave and especially child support are much weaker than in Nordic countries.
From my perspective the strongest case for Switzerland is the decentralized and half-direct democratic process, political stability due to consensus. But you only get that as a citizen, which is not easy to achieve (takes a decade and you have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops). But the Swiss are very happy with their governmental structure in comparison and cherish direct democracy especially.
I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest. A smaller percentage of a larger salary is often more optimal than the reverse.
This is why for example working in a high COL city with a high salary is ultimately better; your 10% going to savings will be higher. It might not matter if you never leave the high COL city, but ceteris paribus I’d rather have a larger number in the bank account.
>I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest
It's largely meaningless, because some of what people are saving for in one country can be included in tax and social security contributions in another country - e.g. pensions and university tuition.
Vacation is also never mentioned in those discussions or comparisons. 10 days in the US vs. 20-30 (+ 8-14 public holidays, depending on the state) in Germany is much more important for _me_ than the net income.
Isn't this article just plain wrong? These are nowhere near the after tax salaries, an average working Dutch person (even when excluding unemployed) is not grossing 9-10k a month with 6k euros net as this suggests. I think the article is confusing employer-side hourly labour costs with net earnings.
It does not matter. I'd rather live in a country I like to live in, based on culture, food, society, etc. than earn slightly more.
Or phrased differently: what are you going to buy with the extra money that is gonna offset you living in a country you dislike?
Choosing a country in Europe is not like choosing a state in the US. The systems, culture, people, food and so on differ much more wildely. Choosing that over a minor tax difference thst could change with the next government is downright unhinged.
I don't know whether this is AI slop or what. The first chart definitely doesn't show average salary AFTER tax, maybe it's a total cost to employer on hourly basis before any taxes or SSC.
And the second chart titled "Where do taxes weigh the most on employers and employees?" doesn't actually show what it purports to show.
It only shows a small slice of the social security contributions that employers pay. It shows: 100% * (Employer SSC / Total cost to employer), but:
Total tax = Tax + Employer SSC + Employee SSC.
Total cost to employer = Gross salary + Employer SSC + "benefits/costs" (vary by country)
Paid out to employee = Gross salary - Tax - Employee SSC + "benefits/costs"
See Table 3.1 on page 71 for a summarized overview of "total tax wedge vs total employer cost" in various living situations (single, with children, low/average/high wage).
Note that this still doesn't tell the full story because it ignores some benefits and entitlements that depend on your living situation ("Non-standard tax relief").
The numbers for Norway aren't plausible at all. Full time 45€ after tax would be a yearly net income of 95000 euros. At a ~50% marginal tax rate that's be a yearly income of over 2 million kroner. No way that's the average.
According to Statistics Norway the monthly average salary in Norway was 62070kr in 2025, so 744840kr per year.
These numbers can get wonky fast. E.g. devs salaries in Ukraine are pegged to the dollar, so they get free raises as the exchange rates plummet. At the same time the cost of living in Ukraine was low before the war and only got lower. Oh and taxes are pretty low in Ukraine.
So I'm pretty sure Ukranian devs will end up with one of the top salary rates in all of Ukraine, but the externalities of that are large.
The first chart is labeled "Hourly wage after taxes (€)" and links to a specific table in official Eurostat[0]. This Eurostat table is "Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity" - afaict Eurostat defines[1] "labour cost" as:
core expenditure borne by employers for the purpose of employing staff. They include employee compensation, with wages and salaries in cash and in kind, employers' social security contributions and employment taxes regarded as labour costs minus any subsidies received, but not vocational training costs or other expenditure such as recruitment costs and spending on working clothes
In other words, this doesn't whatsoever represent "hourly wage after taxes" and this article is complete slop.
Even from a pure financial perspective, given one benefit of these countries is you generally actually get useful benefits out of your tax dollars unlike the USA, wouldn't a better way of looking at this be some sort of weighted metric?
Imagine there's country A where i get a net salary of X and Y units of value out of my tax money. And country B where my net Salary is (X-M) and I get (Y+N) out of my tax money. Depending on the values of M & N, country B could be a clear winner at the end of the day.
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France & Sweden is close in the numbers but France is notably cheaper to eat out and Healthcare quality can't even be compared (to French favor). But if you're wealthy you'd probably prefer Sweden still because of the low taxes around wealth.
I recently compared (by actually going there) Switzerland vs Sweden when I passed a FAANG tech interview in Zurich, but even with 4-5x Salary of what I have now, I would probably end up living poorer if I had kids (if more than 2, it's for certain) in Zurich.
So like, who is this article for.
Oh and Sweden is slightly ahead of France on the latest EHCI. Sweden scores near the bottom on accessibility (as is tradition, same thing 10 and 15 years ago even) but ranks highly overall and especially on outcomes, so I take issue with the assertion that French healthcare is much better.
https://santesecu.public.lu/dam-assets/fr/publications/e/eur...
> EHCI
I live in a country from the bottom of this ranking and can confirm from personal experience. Nothing works, people die, and still it's very expensive.
Child tax credits are varied as well and generally too low (IMO), maternity/paternity leave and especially child support are much weaker than in Nordic countries.
From my perspective the strongest case for Switzerland is the decentralized and half-direct democratic process, political stability due to consensus. But you only get that as a citizen, which is not easy to achieve (takes a decade and you have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops). But the Swiss are very happy with their governmental structure in comparison and cherish direct democracy especially.
This is why for example working in a high COL city with a high salary is ultimately better; your 10% going to savings will be higher. It might not matter if you never leave the high COL city, but ceteris paribus I’d rather have a larger number in the bank account.
It's largely meaningless, because some of what people are saving for in one country can be included in tax and social security contributions in another country - e.g. pensions and university tuition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
Or phrased differently: what are you going to buy with the extra money that is gonna offset you living in a country you dislike?
Choosing a country in Europe is not like choosing a state in the US. The systems, culture, people, food and so on differ much more wildely. Choosing that over a minor tax difference thst could change with the next government is downright unhinged.
And the second chart titled "Where do taxes weigh the most on employers and employees?" doesn't actually show what it purports to show.
It only shows a small slice of the social security contributions that employers pay. It shows: 100% * (Employer SSC / Total cost to employer), but:
Here's where you can actually find a half-decent comparison: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/taxing-wages-2025_b3a95...See Table 3.1 on page 71 for a summarized overview of "total tax wedge vs total employer cost" in various living situations (single, with children, low/average/high wage).
Note that this still doesn't tell the full story because it ignores some benefits and entitlements that depend on your living situation ("Non-standard tax relief").
According to Statistics Norway the monthly average salary in Norway was 62070kr in 2025, so 744840kr per year.
https://www.ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkos...
So I'm pretty sure Ukranian devs will end up with one of the top salary rates in all of Ukraine, but the externalities of that are large.
core expenditure borne by employers for the purpose of employing staff. They include employee compensation, with wages and salaries in cash and in kind, employers' social security contributions and employment taxes regarded as labour costs minus any subsidies received, but not vocational training costs or other expenditure such as recruitment costs and spending on working clothes
In other words, this doesn't whatsoever represent "hourly wage after taxes" and this article is complete slop.
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/LC_LCI_LEV__c...
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/de/lc_lci_lev_e...
Imagine there's country A where i get a net salary of X and Y units of value out of my tax money. And country B where my net Salary is (X-M) and I get (Y+N) out of my tax money. Depending on the values of M & N, country B could be a clear winner at the end of the day.