Having run a business in France for 16 years (with employees), I do not consider the labor laws to be such a barrier. I think if you ask many SMBs owners in Fr

Having run a business in France for 16 years (with employees), I do not consider the labor laws to be such a barrier. I think if you ask many SMBs owners in France, we'd gripe more about the tax system (which got slightly less opaque since RSI was finally shut down, but no less onerous) or the paperwork. Allowing people who dedicate their workweek to your business, to have social benefits, free healthcare, retirement benefits and unemployment money if they get fired seems like a fair deal to me. Especially if you consider that even taking into account those "extra costs", total comp seems to me to still be lower than what you'd have to pay a US employee for the same job