You can't tar and feather the entirety of Europe like that. I'll provide a contra-example anecdote: Me and two other chaps formed a start up in 2000 - bog sta

You can't tar and feather the entirety of Europe like that. I'll provide a contra-example anecdote: Me and two other chaps formed a start up in 2000 - bog standard IT services/consultancy. Still trundling along, we won't set the world on fire but doing OK. One of our employees is Polish, in Poland. We pay him the same as everyone else. OK he's actually now self-employed for tax purposes and Brexit but his rate is the same as our other techies. He was working remote six months before anyone had heard of SARS-CoV-2. When we started out our first two employees were enticed away with twice their previous pay. lol. Travel shops don't pay much here in the UK. They stayed for 10 and 15 years. One month in 20 years we had a cash flow problem. We like to keep a decent float in the bank rather than drive fast cars. I do like to sleep at night. The Directors didn't get paid that month but all staff were paid. The next few months we caught up OK. Anyone who's run a small business will know that's not bad going for cash flow. I should point out that we have never, ever had an overdraft. We do have a mortgage but that costs less than the rent we used to pay for less than half the size of building. I could go on (sorry). Not all startups strive for the stars. A famous French bloke once memorably described Britain as a nation of shopkeepers (ie boring as fuck): I take that as a compliment.