Opinion | For the young and hungry, Europe is fast losing its allure as a prestigious job market
- Europe’s gentle decline is becoming more marked after a decade of crises and its economy – with low pay, high taxes and a high cost of living – shows little sign of improving
- Beyond banking and other traditional industries, Europe is conspicuous in its absence
Europe offers low pay, high taxes and a high cost of living, with no sign of improvement after a string of crises over the past decade. For many industries, one can make a strong case for picking China instead; Europe’s visible stagnation should deter the tech-savvy and innovation-minded.
To start with, the pay can be dismal. In a recent survey, relatively fresh Oxford graduates working in the United Kingdom earned an annual median salary of £35,700, taking home £28,300 (US$35,210) after tax.
Their counterparts from the National University of Singapore do slightly better: they earned an annual median of at least S$51,600 last year, or S$50,238 (US$37,590) after tax. But their Ivy League peers can expect US$86,025 three years after graduation.
The gap is even more striking in some professions. For example, a software engineer with less than a year of experience can, according to Glassdoor, make more than US$100,000 in the US, but less than £46,000 (US$57,300) in the UK and €55,500 (US$60,700) in Germany.
Even in corporate services, supposedly Europe’s strong suit, the picture is no less unflattering. McKinsey & Company pays its entry-level business analysts in Europe about half as much as their American peers – £50,985 in the UK and €58,157 in France, compared with US$118,884 in the US, CA$110,368 (US$81,200) in Canada, AED252,000 (US$68,600) in the United Arab Emirates and S$79,500 in Singapore (bearing in mind the latter two’s tax advantages).
