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Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

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581–590 of 593 posts

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His point is accurate if you include asians as a minority group. No, it's not. Even if they were favored, one racial minority group being favored and others being disfavored doesn't balance out to “no racism”, it's even more racism than the latter being disfavored alone. And even if there is no evidence of racism in either direction affecting Asians, that doesn't negate racism affecting other groups. At best it mig…

What about the much higher numbers of indians (especially in C level executive positions) in tech? Or Arabs? Transgenders? Neurodivergents? Iranians? Muslims? What's the line here? At what point would tech not be racist? I really don't see your point here. There is a lot of evidence pointing to a really diverse, generally progressive industry with, if anything, a higher over representation (compared to the population…

The absence of certain types of bias does not preclude nor excuse the existence of other types.

>There is a lot of evidence pointing to a really diverse, generally progressive industry with, if anything, a higher over representation (compared to the population) of multiple minority groups, different gender identities and a much more inclusivity conscious mindset than probably any other industry.

That is not true. Retail, labor, non-tech administration are good examples to the contrary. The difference in pay and prestige is telling.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#582
Epam Systems

(Mexico) They have been firing people systematically in the last months. They don't have any new projects and they keep hiring more people just to fire them a few months later.

Top management sends global emails saying they want to keep all the employees, but locally they are firing people.

Ironically, to this day, no local managers have been fired.

on the good side: full law compensation is offered.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#583
post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sure, but in all of those countries health care insurers are incredibly tightly controlled... Insurance companies in the US are also "incredibly tightly controlled". Regulations even specify amounts that can be spent on patient care, administration etc. Health insurers are the only segment of the health care sector in the US where profits are directly limited. >Which is why the state can and will fund hospitals dire…

It does have a lot to do with it, as it directly nullifies the issue the OP was talking about. When I mean incredibly tightly controlled, I mean effectively price controls, and very stringent ones at that, and all of them have the state as the main insurer anyways, while AFAIK the US does not insure anyone directly.

>...AFAIK the US does not insure anyone directly

The government provides health insurance to many people. 44 million people are insured by Medicare. 74 million people are insured by Medicaid. Over 1 million veterans get their health care provided by the government run VA medical system.

As I pointed out, most countries have a mix of private/public funding a mix of private/public run health care. Lots of people seem to be under the misconception that universal health care coverage is only possible in a Canadian or UK type health care system.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assessing the short term health impact of the Great Recession in the European Union: a cross-country panel analysis > Results > Overall, during the recent recession, an increase of one percentage point in the standardised unemployment rate has been associated with a statistically significant decrease in the following mortality rates: all-cause-mortality (3.4%), cardiovascular diseases (3.7%), cirrhosis- and chronic…

That seems pretty disingenuous given that the Great Depression was the lynchpin for World War 2 which directly resulted in the deaths of 75 million people.

That's a cherry picking fallacy and unrelated to the effects of the Great Recession.

We do not live in a 1930s world of belligerent alliances itching for a chance to bloody someone up.

Wars between the big powers are now economic and political. Nobody wants nuclear annihilation.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#585

Babylon Health furloughed 140 people. I think they're using this as an excuse to re-structure their organisation. The tagline is that they are furloughing 5% of staff. They've used it as an opportunity to make 30% of their mobile engineers redundant, as well as push many senior engineers on higher salaries towards the exit

They are actually FIRING many more. See https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Babylon-Health-Reviews-E...

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#586
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You don't get government unemployment benefits in the UK if you have >16k in savings (i.e. most programmers, presumably)

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#587
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much are unemployment benefits worth in the UK? Like if you are a programmer, what percent of monthly salary would be the unemployment benefits?

Shit all. New style JSA is £74.35 a week plus you could also potentially claim Universal Credit (if you've got under £16k savings) which is £94. £730 or so a month is not enough to live on if you're having to pay for your accommodation in most of the south.

The Local Housing Allowance pretty low but you'd be able to claim the it, housing element of UC, on top of UC.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#588
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, as I surely thought they will be one of the companies benefiting the lockdown.

Probably most of the people they fired were "robot operators", who were paid ~3 euros/hour (~550/month), while their executives and high-levels make 5k to 10k a month net. Robot operators' jobs are to manually test or drive these robots. - All salaries are net, after taxes - Estonian average salary is 1000 euros/month

I've heard that their executives/PMs are top notch, so 5-10k month net might be on the high side, but not outrageous IMO (assuming the Estonian job market is a bit more expensive than Latvian, which I'm familiar with).

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So.. not an engineer.

When was the last time a person with the title engineer was an actual engineer? Even software engineers are usually just programmers, sometimes senior sometimes not. Hence my question. I think you can usually tell what someone is not by looking at their job title. The last word tells you what they're not (except for those management positions where they do it backwards and say "vice president communications" - in tho…

How do you define the differentiation between programmers and engineers?
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