My understanding is that it's a lot more work for a company to have employees across many different countries.
Things like payroll, insurance, health benefits, retirement benefits, equity, unions, etc. all need to be done differently for different countries. This means that there's a lot of "extra stuff" that's specific to each country. For example, US employees expect a 401(k) plan and health insurance. For a US company, that's par for the course, but for a French company (for example), you need local expertise to navigate all the laws and protocols.
There are middlemen like Rippling that help centralize some of those things, and paper over the differences. But it's still a lot of added complexity. Not insurmountable, but smaller companies may decide to not burden themselves with it.
Things like payroll, insurance, health benefits, retirement benefits, equity, unions, etc. all need to be done differently for different countries. This means that there's a lot of "extra stuff" that's specific to each country. For example, US employees expect a 401(k) plan and health insurance. For a US company, that's par for the course, but for a French company (for example), you need local expertise to navigate all the laws and protocols.
There are middlemen like Rippling that help centralize some of those things, and paper over the differences. But it's still a lot of added complexity. Not insurmountable, but smaller companies may decide to not burden themselves with it.