Plenty of HPE employees are going home unemployed these days. https://www.thelayoff.com/hp-enterprise
Ask HN: Who is firing?
181–190 of 454 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did a double-take when I saw Twitter posting[0] in the Who's Hiring thread. What's the rationale here? Why are they firing and hiring at the same time? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851502
Because having a mass layoff is an easy way to reduce non productive people. Otherwise you have to go through a complicated process for each individual, with a higher risk to be sued.
That's maybe the theory, maybe.
In practice, in my personal experience, mass layoffs are a nightmare for everybody, and end up affecting also those not directly involved (especially since in most cases they don't know if they are until the layoffs are done).
So:
- Many of the "productive" people will leave on their own accord for better pastures, even before the layoffs are carried out.
- The rest will find themselves with an increased workload (and the nagging feeling they should have followed the lead of the previous group).
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, we use the terms the same way in the US, just the protections behind them are weaker (and personally, as an employee, I'm fine with it that way). You might be thinking of the phrase "was let go", which is just a nicer way of saying "got fired". "Laid off" here means the same as in the UK: you were sent home because your job function isn't needed anymore, or because the company is downsizing.
> and personally, as an employee, I'm fine with it that way You mean as a reasonably well-off employee who was lucky enough to have picked a growing field when you went to uni. On the other hand, if that field ever stops growing for any reason... you might see why people enjoy stability and the ability to plan ahead in their work life.
Some people think that pro-employee laws are not in fact good for employees.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with them, it's super uncharitable to dismiss them in this way.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always found if funny companies touting "We're hiring only the best" and then "We firing the worst".
Companies can self-consistently seek to hire the best and fire the worst from the the hired-pool. 1. Hiring is a noisy process. You can tune your hiring test to lean more towards false negatives or more towards false positives, but you cannot (at this juncture in history) eliminate a large amount of bias (error) from evaluations of candidates. 2. Regression to the mean ensures that any hiring process that sets a "hig…
Knew the HN SV crowd would find a way to spin this as "This is good for "
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! I'm really tempted to post about the suffering, near-fraud and deceit in my company, but I figure it'll be all over the news soon.
You could share thoughts on Glassdoor, right? I would like to find (or create) a service where we can talk about the real dirt at companies. Encouraging honest accounts without disparagment is a hard balance. Building an identity and reputation system where reviews are trustworthy is hard, especially if you also want anonymity. Like many people, I've worked at places with big problems. In cases where friends apply, I…
>I would like to find (or create) a service where we can talk about the real dirt at companies
It exists, it's posting anonymous timestamped proof on 4chan's /g/ then saying whatever you want to get off your chest.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
The newspaper / print media industry generally is doing abysmally poorly. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/business/media/buyouts-wal... Submitted yesterday, didn't go anywhere: https://news.ycombinator.co/item?id=12834583 I've been picking up newspapers and magazines and been quietly horrified at how thin they are. I'm no fan of advertising, but I know it's how they pay the bills, and there are no ads there. The Ch…
The Chicago Tribune renamed its holding company "Tronc" a few months back. It didn't help. Gannett just declined to buy them a few hours ago. Tribune Tower is being converted to condos.
I hadn't heard of Gannett's withdrawal. That's going to sting.
I'm aware of the Trib Tower sale. Its progress dominated the Trib's business pages for about six months.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK, "getting fired" or "getting the sack" means you were incompetent (or commited misconduct) and are sent home. For incompentance, they can only do this after a "performance review" (they have to give you 3 months to improve, I think). "Laid off" is called being "made redundant". The company can do this much more easily to a bunch of people, but it generally has to pay them ~6 months salary and can't hire new…
You forgot about being 'sent to Coventry' - i.e. the company doesn't want to pay you redundancy, and can't fire you for incompetence, so you get ignored, not given any work, get put in a useless role, etc until you wise up and quit/find another job. British passive aggressiveness at its finest! Being American. I would have had no problem with being fired aka 'you're now surplus' and it would have been far more helpfu…
I've heard that that practise (what a name!) Is relatively common in Japan: I've never heard of it in the UK before.
I have heard of "gardening leave" though: where you're left on full salary but kept out of the building for your notice period, to stop you passing up to date market info to your new company. (It's the only legal way I know of in the UK to implement a non-compete clause.)
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
The newspaper / print media industry generally is doing abysmally poorly. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/business/media/buyouts-wal... Submitted yesterday, didn't go anywhere: https://news.ycombinator.co/item?id=12834583 I've been picking up newspapers and magazines and been quietly horrified at how thin they are. I'm no fan of advertising, but I know it's how they pay the bills, and there are no ads there. The Ch…
Sorry to dump on your aside, but the media arm isn't affected. The Finance/Risk news (for financial clients) division is the one being downsized, and they were profitable. The parent mentions it, but here's the brief from their outlet: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-thomsonreuters-results-idU...
Hey, accurate info is good info, I appreciate that.
Which does though raise the question of how it is newswires (Reuters, UPI, AP) are succeeding where direct media outlets aren't. Or is it just that the pain is there but less than (in T/R's case) the finance/risk arm?
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did a double-take when I saw Twitter posting[0] in the Who's Hiring thread. What's the rationale here? Why are they firing and hiring at the same time? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851502
Because having a mass layoff is an easy way to reduce non productive people. Otherwise you have to go through a complicated process for each individual, with a higher risk to be sued.
How come in a right to work regimen like the states how is it hard? you can just say "we have decided to cut back marketing head count by 20%"
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK, "getting fired" or "getting the sack" means you were incompetent (or commited misconduct) and are sent home. For incompentance, they can only do this after a "performance review" (they have to give you 3 months to improve, I think). "Laid off" is called being "made redundant". The company can do this much more easily to a bunch of people, but it generally has to pay them ~6 months salary and can't hire new…
You don't get 6 months salary, that's never been a thing. Unless there's something different in your contract, it's a week per year worked. A normal contract clause in the UK is that it's a month or 6 weeks notice both ways after a probationary period of 3 or 6 months, so that's usually a minimum. https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/redundancy-pay
Thanks for correcting me, clearly I've only ever heard about it from people who had been working somewhere for a long time!