Employer cost is not 2x, more like 1.2x, employer overhead is mostly insurance related stuff. We had salaray to employer cost tables at my previous job.

What true though is that after taxes you might just receive 60% of your total salary once you deduct taxes and insurances.

Yeah , but the German pension system is unfortunately a scam . Therefore everyone is responsible for their own retirement (private investments e.g etfs) .

> In my (very naive) mental model, US salaries are higher, have a lot less "overhead" for the employer, but leave more responsibility (healthcare, retirement) to the employee.

Unfortunately this time, AI does not have vacations, healthcare, retirement or bills to pay and is available 24/7, 365 days on demand.

Many companies only see this as an opportunity to cut down on employees in 2026 and Session will do the same.

So that is why to answer your question:

> ...Germany is one of the most expensive countries for employing white collar jobs?

The main reason why the downsizing will continue until "AGI" is achieved internally.