Its very easy to fire people in the US, so there is likely considerable more stress involved in the US workers day to day as they don't know if they are going to be randomly let go tomorrow. US companies will often lay off hundreds of people to make the bottom line look better. We generally make good $ but it could all end tomorrow so we are always thinking of the next position. In addition, we get used to the money so while we could probably easily get a lower paying job if we have to, many of us [not al] also are not that great at financial planning in the US so the stress is maximized. On top of that our health insurance for our family is provided by our jobs.

So in the US its a perfect storm of stress and reliance on our jobs that can be taken away at any moment.

Writing this out, stressed me out :)

> do not doubt that what you are saying is true

You should doubt it, because it’s wildly exaggerated. The overwhelming majority of software engineers in America are not speaking at conferences, blogging, or maintaining open-source software beyond possibly toy projects.

> Isn't the unemployment rate in the US low (around 3.5%) right now?

Remember that the "unemployment rate" in the US is very particular. If you haven't searched for a job within the past 4 weeks then you're not unemployed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_the_United_Sta...

Unemployment being low in the US is not so directly correlated with how workers are treated because there are so few labor protections in place and those that do exist are rarely enforced.

For a tech industry example, what Elon Musk did with layoffs and worker treatment at Twitter in his relentless efforts to demonstrate his incompetence would be illegal in most of Europe and quickly face the ire of unions and regulators. In the US, by contrast, his behavior was seen as aspirational by a number of other tech CEOs, who quickly followed suit to demonstrate that they were just as “smart” and “tough” as Musk.