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Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

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Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#151

Post by rusticpenn »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #99
throwaway9002 wrote: post #77

Playtech in London isn't firing but cut all employee salaries by 10% across the board. The CEO just awarded himself a 30mil bonus: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/playtech-plan-to-pay-boss...

Wow, I didn't think any developed country allowed employers to legally cut an employees salary.

That is standard in Germany. For a period of upto 12 months during emergencies, employees contracts can be reduced to x% (for x % hours), the govt will cover the remaining money (upto 60% of net salary). Its called shotrt-term work or kurzarbeit.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#152

Post by dmichulke »

chrisseaton wrote: post #137
speedgoose wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Frenchman I can recommend light protests, from home. Instead of burning a few wooden pallets and having a BBQ while blocking the company entrance, you guys could perhaps put a firewall rule to drop all incoming traffic to the VPN and having an online video party.

> you guys could perhaps put a firewall rule to drop all incoming traffic to the VPN How could you ever trust an employee who did this with their access privileges?

In France, employees don't earn the trust of the CEO, the CEO earns the trust of the employees.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#153

Post by saiya-jin »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #103
gigatexal wrote: post #79

No severance?! I, as an expat, am absolutely grateful and have changed my tune on the “European welfare state” trope to “this just makes sense”. I got let go from a Berlin based fintech and got 3 months pay plus a small severance. They did this likely because funding fell apart during the pandemic but it could have also been to cull people that they didn’t need but they did do right by us.

Surprisingly, severance is also mandatory in Argentina and many other "under development" countries. I'm absolutely amazed at how people in the US are so against severance being mandatory.

Well its a society that lacks some basic societal qualities many others find quite necessary to call the society well developed. Like taking care of those in need, weak, disabled etc. The thing is, the state is setup to prefer overall economic performance over 'being nice and generous', so tons of shortsighted people think along the lines of 'well I am doing fine, I don't want to support others in need, thus I can have more' and so on.

The logic is stupid of course, we all live in society so well-being of your fellow countrymen transform into your well-being too in many direct and indirect ways.

But if you are told from birth your country is the best, has the best system, all others are worse, cash is the king and your job is the most important aspect of your worthiness as a human being, well... it ends up in similar system.

Don't take me wrong, its fantastic to be super rich and powerful in US (just like anywhere else), its great to start/own company there, but it progressively sucks the more you are poorer, much faster than in any other western society.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#156

Post by rvp-x »

roadbeats wrote: post #100

Can we say that the layoffs are mostly happening in US ? I can't see that trend in Europe, correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm in neither of those places and we have a dramatic increase in unemployment (4% -> 26%), mostly furloughed employees. The local government is encouraging it probably because they don't need any special new legislation or methods to provide unemployment benefits.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#157

Post by bryanrasmussen »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #114
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, severance is also mandatory in Argentina and many other "under development" countries. I'm absolutely amazed at how people in the US are so against severance being mandatory.

Argentina and Germany are hardly in rosy positions at the moment. “I like free money” is hardly a good argument to support statements like “it just makes sense”.

what country is in a rosy position at the moment? and what is that country's worker's rights position?

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#158

Post by cerberusss »

chrisseaton wrote: post #137
speedgoose wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Frenchman I can recommend light protests, from home. Instead of burning a few wooden pallets and having a BBQ while blocking the company entrance, you guys could perhaps put a firewall rule to drop all incoming traffic to the VPN and having an online video party.

> you guys could perhaps put a firewall rule to drop all incoming traffic to the VPN How could you ever trust an employee who did this with their access privileges?

The same could be said about a CEO who cuts everybody with 10% and gets a huge bonus at the same time. I'm not disagreeing with you, though.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#159

Post by tr33house »

primitivesuave wrote: post #33
ekianjo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "For every 1% unemployment goes up [in the USA], 40,000 people die". I have seen that line too, but I wonder how substantiated this is? Is there any data to support it?

There is the coping hypothesis, that coping with unemployment causes unhealthy behavior and death [1] and the latent sickness hypothesis [2], that unhealthy behavior is a cause of both unemployment and death. Anecdotally it makes sense - if you are an alcoholic or drug addict you are likely to lose your job as well as die as a result of your behavior - but the actual number of people who die is ostensibly hard to mea…

I'm guessing there'll be a lesser need to cope this time around since a lot of people will know a lot of other people who are unemployed. All of a sudden being unemployed might be the new normal and we'll all help each other cope

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#160

Post by catchmilk »

acruns wrote: post #70
squiggleblaz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a sales engineer? Is it just a higher ranked sales person?

They are the technical person on the sales team. They do demo's, field technical questions, might do a POC with a potential customer, so on. They also get a commission but they traditionally have a standard salary as well instead of the sales rep where their salary might be 60% or more commission only.

So.. not an engineer.
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