There is a lot I want to fix in Austria from bureaucracy to taxation of stock options and more. The employment law is very fine by me.
If you think that you will get better wages if it’s harder to dismiss employees I have doubts. The main reason devs don’t earn enough in Austria is that it’s hard and expensive to have a business there and that the country is not appealing for employees. That means that the few good IT companies have a small labor pool and need to relocate developers for whom the country is not appealing.
Not really, because there are other options around. For a gross salary of 100.000 Euro (which is already high, but not necessarily for software engineers) the employer pays 125.000 Euro, after taxes the employee retains 61.000 Euro. Stock options are generally taxed as income as well.
So the general taxation situation and the complexities in doing business (lots of notaries needed, slow processes) make it unappealing.
If you think that you will get better wages if it’s harder to dismiss employees I have doubts. The main reason devs don’t earn enough in Austria is that it’s hard and expensive to have a business there and that the country is not appealing for employees. That means that the few good IT companies have a small labor pool and need to relocate developers for whom the country is not appealing.