Based on what data? A quick google search says the average automation engineer in Germany makes 90k euro to $107k in the US.

And the German has universal healthcare, clocks out at 5 and can’t be bothered, and gets real vacation time.

https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/automation-engineer/

My guess would be that big German companies like to sell and insure their industrial equipment wholesale. For example, if you buy stuff from Siemens, everything in the factory must be as per how the applications engineer described it - which is to mean you have to buy everything from them and set it up exactly as they want - otherwise there goes your insurance/warranty.

This isn't exactly cheap, it's worth it for the big players, but needless to say, I'm not exactly enamored with the practice.

Globe-trotting contractors are probably well-paid specialists. GP is probably not commenting on the German labor market.

> They probably just used the Germans because they are cheaper.

German engineering salaries are definitely not cheaper. If you want cheaper then hire people from Poland, Romania or even Spain, Portugal.

They make less money as salary but aren't cheaper overall when you take into account all the other expenses and regulations.

> They probably just used the Germans because they are cheaper.

I think a more pressing question is why businesses all over, but especially in America, are so obsessed with cost-cutting to the exclusion of everything else that they're openly, predictably setting up said business to implode once the wrong people leave.

Like I dunno, being a pink-haired lesbian communist I am, I'm somewhat suspect of my own opinions, but that said, I personally have no problem seeing that investing in your employees is probably a good idea if you want your business to remain sustainable for the long-haul. But nowadays all corporate leadership is fixated on the next handful of quarters at most. The less-skilled only on the next quarter and no further. I don't personally think capitalism and corporations are good ideas in general, but they also seem to be failing quite spectacularly at their own stated advantages at this point which I don't think gets brought up enough.