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EU countries team up for semiconductor push

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Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#402
post #131
post #12

How will they be keeping talent? I heard workers in IT are paid low compared to other jobs and especially compared to similar jobs in North America, what stops them. from just going to US/Canada?

I work in IT in the US, and if someone offered me a job with a visa in Europe, with the potential for permanent stay. Even if it was 1/2 my current salary I would probably take it, depending on the country it was in.

Apply and let the company handle the paperwork.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: - labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) - lots of disjointed small-to-medium markets (with different laws and languages) make expansion on continental scale much harder than in the US

>- labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) That's just not true now and hasn't been the case anymore since like the 2009 financial crisis. In most of Europe it's trivial to fire an underperforming non-unionized employee as the countries have adapted more business friendly laws to remain competitive after the financial crisis. Sure, there may still be some grey beards somewhere with old bullet…

That's just Austria which is a comparatively small country.

In the larger ones (DE, FR) labor laws are a nightmare.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#404
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? Europe is in this strange place where collectively account for enormous wealth and power but individually no country is a match to the big boys like USA/China when simultaneously are super unoptimised due to cultural/lingual differences. The younger Europeans I met were all very eager to learn English, so who k…

>>the English language can become the lingua franca with less resistance as it is no ones language(Well, there are the Irish but it's a small country). Malta also has English as an official language, though again, it's an even smaller country. On the other hand, in neither Ireland or Malta is English the "first" official language.

Every country should make English their second official language like Ireland and Malta.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#405
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economies don't develop by linear growth extrapolation.

China's economy with all its issues has definitely far more potential for growth left than the EU or the USA... It's still a developing country for the most part. Better learn Chinese if you want to stay relevant in 30 years... wait better learn it now. In the hardware world, Documentation about new chips etc. is increasingly available in Chinese first.

Which chips?

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#406
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? Europe is in this strange place where collectively account for enormous wealth and power but individually no country is a match to the big boys like USA/China when simultaneously are super unoptimised due to cultural/lingual differences. The younger Europeans I met were all very eager to learn English, so who k…

> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970) and CERN (1954) to find successful European projects, I think this show how big of a serious problem there is in Europe no!? P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european a…

> P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can.

This is absolutely not true. English is tought in most schools simply because it's used worldwide. Also, most of the people I know are very happy to live here, and most who may have wanted to emmigrate to the US lost any desire to do so after the four years of Trump.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#407
post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970) and CERN (1954) to find successful European projects, I think this show how big of a serious problem there is in Europe no!? P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european a…

Europe's done big multinational technical-political things many times to varying levels of success. Don't forget Gaileo, Arianespace, Airbus's parent EADS, the ESA, etc. They tend to not be super capital efficient, but the sheer amount of wealth and resources tend to make things that are priorities not completely fail. > P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the…

> What factors make you want to get out? As an American who's spent a lot of time in both the US and Continental Europe (and elsewhere) I don't see any terrific suck.

At the risk of speaking out of turn, I've traveled extensively outside the US and befriended a lot of folks and had discussions on this topic with them. I would summarize my findings as such:

1. Economic Mobility: In Europe economic mobility, on average, is actually better than the US. But, for those who are educated and driven, economic mobility in the US is much much much higher. Average person may up their income by $10k/yr in PPP or more in Europe from young adulthood to adult-hood, average person in the US tends to stay flat. But driven, intelligent people with degrees in the US can double or triple their income from young adulthood to adulthood, and this simply doesn't happen in Europe. The tech industry is a major factor in this, where senior-level positions in non-FAANG companies can make upwards of $150k/yr in the US, and the PPP equivalent European salary is around half of that.

2. Lifestyle goals: In Europe, it is very hard to be successful as a young person outside of major metro areas. This is somewhat true for the US as well, and while business cultures are different in different areas, it's easier (pre-COVID) to work remotely for a US-based company vs a EU-based company, but usually requires working US timezone hours or relocating to the US. Additionally, Americans tend to lead faster paced public lives, but slower paced private lives, and the reverse tends to be the case for Europeans. Everybody has their own lifestyle preferences, and lifestyle also is a major factor in intra-EU movements as well (I have friends who moved from Belgium to Portugal for instance, due to lifestyle. Friends that moved from Germany to Spain, etc.)

3. Freedom: The US is more diverse and free in some aspects. There's a lot of nuance here, but while you obviously have a lot of history, linguistic, and food diversity in the EU, there's significant similarities in cultural expectations, especially in professional work environments once you enter the middle class. The US is a LOT more free in regards to one's behavior, lifestyle choices, and personal life when you are in the middle class, compared to Europe. This is probably more obvious in the UK than anywhere else, where class hallmarks are as direct as how you speak to someone verbally, where in the US it's possible to have a pronounced Southern accent and still be solidly middle class in a professional environment, even though that's not considered as high-brow as a West-coast accent would be. Europe is in many ways more diverse overall, but not really in the middle class and above environments. Also some people just want to be free to do whatever they want on their own property without anyone nosing in, and this is antithetical to the European communal mindset which is very often enforced legally through direct government regulation.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#408
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970) and CERN (1954) to find successful European projects, I think this show how big of a serious problem there is in Europe no!? P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european a…

This is BS. English proficiency is very high in The Netherlands and Scandinavia, but people there are not lining up to emigrate. According to you, who wants to leave and why? P.S. Raising your kids in a British college? As in a school in Britain?

I don't know why OP is so bitter and wants to emigrate but in general, English is not about moving to another place but doing business beyond local.

The Netherlands and Scandinavia accounts for the most of the European global tech output and this is not because Spaniards don't know how to code.

The Dutch and people in the Scandinavian countries are so proficient in English that they do products like the Americans. Knowing English that well makes it possible to understand the global popular culture and think in global scale when doing startups.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#409
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? Europe is in this strange place where collectively account for enormous wealth and power but individually no country is a match to the big boys like USA/China when simultaneously are super unoptimised due to cultural/lingual differences. The younger Europeans I met were all very eager to learn English, so who k…

> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970) and CERN (1954) to find successful European projects, I think this show how big of a serious problem there is in Europe no!? P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european a…

Well this makes no sense. I mean, good luck with your decisions, but Europe is wast, and there are certainly places where someone could prosper.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#410

So, as someone who used to be an engineer in semiconductor manufacturing facilities, this reminds me a lot of Sematech. That was a joint venture between American companies in the 90's, when there was a concern that we were falling behind Japan. I'm sure there will be people who try to claim otherwise, but my view from inside AMD (at that time still doing its own manufacturing) was that nothing much ever came out of S…

Sematech would have succeeded if the U.S. government had any interest at all in protecting its domestic manufacturing, or if Japan had better labor protections. Now everything is offshored and I can't fly my drone on military bases because all computer chips come from China. Pretty bad move in hindsight.
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