Ask HN: Who Is Firing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#201

Post by omginternets » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:02 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #188

omginternets wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, all contracts are violations of consent. You'll forgive us for not being convinced by your argument.

I’m not sure I follow that logic. Written, signed contracts where the agreeing parties are not being coerced is presently our gold standard for opt-in consent.

>Written, signed contracts where the agreeing parties are not being coerced is presently our gold standard for opt-in consent.

Except that you can't later withdraw your consent. You said that was "a violation of consent".

Which is it?

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#202

Post by tomduncalf » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:02 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #93

kmlx wrote: post #56

a quote i remembered from twitter: "This is the best time to get rid of employees". a startup based in London just fired 10% of their workforce. all were given two options: government's furlough scheme where the state pays 80% of the salary, or outright dismissal. interestingly, half chose to quit.

Under UK employment laws, you can't just force your staff to take a 20% pay cut without their consent, even if you're using the furlough scheme. And as others have pointed out, it may have been more than 20% in practice, if it was based on the furlough scheme where a cap applies. A lot of places that are genuinely up against it because of the virus are asking staff to take that hit voluntarily to help protect the bus…

>Curiously, just yesterday the UK government announced some new measures aimed directly at supporting startups, particularly tech startups in their early stages that aren't yet making money

Do you have a link about this please? Hadn't heard of it until now

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#203

Post by raghava » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:02 AM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #6

reubensutton wrote: post #3

I’ve been checking layoffs.fyi every day and it is incredibly bleak

This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. It's worth remembering there are plenty of companies not laying people off, and "normal" will return eventually. That said, I was watching The Big Short yesterday, and a line that I had noted before haunted me even more: "For every 1% unemployment goes up [in the USA], 40,000 people die". Stay safe, stay positive.

> This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster.

"fail fast; fail often" seems ominously dark for the circumstance.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#204

Post by cerberusss » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:03 AM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #199

cerberusss wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was not at the same time. The bonus was paid in December, before the pandemic.

Thanks, that makes things different. I should've looked better at this particular case!

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#205

Post by Kiro » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:04 AM UTC

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's happening in all modern countries right now and the correct way to combat this downturn instead of letting companies go bankrupt or do layoffs. Do your research and you will see that this is not controversial at all.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#206

Post by 6nf » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:04 AM UTC

sleepychu wrote: post #76

kmlx wrote: post #56

a quote i remembered from twitter: "This is the best time to get rid of employees". a startup based in London just fired 10% of their workforce. all were given two options: government's furlough scheme where the state pays 80% of the salary, or outright dismissal. interestingly, half chose to quit.

For a bit of context, at London startup the furlough scheme is very unlikely to be 80% of their salary because it is capped at 30k per year pre-tax/80% of your salary whichever is lower. That said, I'm surprised half of people turned down 2k/month to job hunt.

If they take the dismissal they get paid out immediately and they can immediately start getting government unemployment benefits. I think?

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#207

Post by disposable33311 » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:05 AM UTC

kshatrea wrote: post #85

disposable38291 wrote: post #5

Dixa sacked 31 people (25% of staff). They closed a $36M series B in February.

When was this? I know someone there but haven’t spoken to them recently.

It was announced to the rest of the company at the townhall yesterday.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#208

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:05 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #93

kmlx wrote: post #56

a quote i remembered from twitter: "This is the best time to get rid of employees". a startup based in London just fired 10% of their workforce. all were given two options: government's furlough scheme where the state pays 80% of the salary, or outright dismissal. interestingly, half chose to quit.

Under UK employment laws, you can't just force your staff to take a 20% pay cut without their consent, even if you're using the furlough scheme. And as others have pointed out, it may have been more than 20% in practice, if it was based on the furlough scheme where a cap applies. A lot of places that are genuinely up against it because of the virus are asking staff to take that hit voluntarily to help protect the bus…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#209

Post by Mountain_Skies » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:06 AM UTC

onychomys wrote: post #136

Hospitals are having a surprisingly tough time of things. I work for a very famous hospital in a small town in the American midwest, and we've (our IT department, that is) laid off all our contractors and the rest of us have mandatory furloughs coming up too. They're doing everything they can to not let us go, but some of us will probably end up getting sacked. And this is maybe the richest and most well-connected ho…

IT security in hospitals is already lacking in general. Cutting all this staff is going to expose them to even worse situations. Obviously they can't make money they don't have magically appear but these layoffs will end up making things even worse.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#210

Post by hnhg » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 11:06 AM UTC

tcard wrote: post #192

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.

Other things equal, if companies need to pay severance, employees get paid less each month, because companies need to take into account expected severance costs in their total labor costs and there's less money left for other benefits. So all employees effectively pay for layoffs, which goes against you if you're not the one that gets laid off. (I am very much in favor of mandatory severance and generally other kinds…

This forgets the high likelihood that the amount that would have been paid as severance goes to the pockets of the owners and leadership. The market pays what the employees are worth, not what is left over after costs.