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Normalising Layoffs/Firing

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Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#51

Post by meheleventyone »

jfoster wrote: post #17
butterNaN wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been in Europe for a few years now and my experiance is significantly opposite of what the parent comment claims.

That doesn't really make logical sense to me. Can you elaborate? If hiring is an irreversible decision for a company, why wouldn't consideration be required prior to any hire?

You can fire people pretty easily in Europe. There’s rules around layoffs but they are also common. All the companies I’ve worked for have hired and fired relatively freely.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#52

Post by ttoinou »

randomsearch wrote: post #31
ttoinou wrote: post #11

Firing easily and hiring easily are two sides of the same coin. If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily. If companies can go down quickly, new companies can be formed in an instant. In Europe where firing is almost impossible, hiring is a very tedious process. Companies are big and look financially stable because the little ones cannot survive or dont enjoy the same monopoly / legal protections. If a c…

> Firing easily and hiring easily are two sides of the same coin. If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily Yes, like 1930s America. I guess you mean “you can be easily hired” rather than “you will find a job easily”. Very different things.

Could you elaborate the difference ?

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#53

Post by rypskar »

acatton wrote: post #26
soptikha2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is quite different in regard to working in Europe. How exactly is hiring a very tedious process? Seemed quite fast and easy to me. And btw, it's not that hard to fire a wrong hire. You have few months to do so basically for any reason at all, and afterwards, you can still do it, if you have a good reason to do so.

Europe is 27 countries with uniformized trade laws. There was never any uniformization on labour laws. GP made a huge generalization by saying "in europe" while talking about labour laws. It's like me saying "in asia, (something about the labour market)", there is no such thing. Hiring/firing/Employee-rights are very different between Spain and Czechia.

>>Europe is 27 countries

No, Europe is 44 countries the subset of Europe that is EU have 27 members

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#54

Post by IshKebab »

jlund-molfese wrote: post #23

It’s not all bad. Having firing as an option in the US makes it palatable for employers to take risks, like hiring the non traditional student, or the person without any industry experience. If at-will employment wasn’t available, companies would react by only hiring when absolutely necessary, and there would be fewer available jobs. Plus, even in the US, some companies offer pensions and are known for almost never l…

You don't need fully at-will employment for that. But I do agree with your overall point. If it was literally impossible to fire anyone - rather than just quite difficult - then interviews would be insane. Probation would last years.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#55

Post by onion2k »

Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised.

I don't think it has been. I don't think you can generalize the sentiment of people at a company from the HN post about a PR announcement for how they're cutting staff. When a company announces layoffs they're telling the markets, investors, and the public that they need to make a significant change. That doesn't tell you anything about how the founders, board, HR team, or anyone else feel about the layoffs.

FWIW the people I know who work in HR are usually gutted when they have to make jobs redundant. Founders and boards are less so, but usually because they believe it's a choice between jobs cuts and company collapse. Both these things are from very limited exposure to companies making cuts though.

Perhaps there are companies and people out there who think it's trivial. That would be sad.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#57

Post by betwixthewires »

lostlogin wrote: post #19
ttoinou wrote: post #11

Firing easily and hiring easily are two sides of the same coin. If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily. If companies can go down quickly, new companies can be formed in an instant. In Europe where firing is almost impossible, hiring is a very tedious process. Companies are big and look financially stable because the little ones cannot survive or dont enjoy the same monopoly / legal protections. If a c…

> If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily. If companies can go down quickly, new companies can be formed in an instant. In New Zealand it is fairly easy to start a company (in the sense that the required paperwork isn’t too difficult). It’s easy to hire people, but firing is hard. Why would ease firing mean ease hiring? Why would companies failing easily mean start ups are simple? It’s not so much that…

It's easy to hire anywhere. But is it easy to get hired? How much rigmarole does a company put you through to ensure they're not going to get stuck with dead weight? I'm guessing quite a bit, and the harder it is to fire you the harder they'll work to make sure you're worth hiring.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#58

Post by thomascarney »

snovv_crash wrote: post #28
jfoster wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really make logical sense to me. Can you elaborate? If hiring is an irreversible decision for a company, why wouldn't consideration be required prior to any hire?

There's usually a considerable probation period where the firing rules are much more relaxed. Germany is typically 6 months, for example.

Even after 6 months, typical compensation for being fired is 2 weeks of salary for every year worked. For most startup employees, this won't be a huge amount, given they have often only worked a few years.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#59

Post by diabolus »

"They are relying on me. If I mess up, I affect lives of 400 to 600 people. That keeps me awake."

This is something I heard many times. And the most of the time, companies with this motto are underpaying and don't give a proper wage to employees to make any passive income or any investment to become less depended on the job. And this motto becomes an excuse for overtime and workload in bad times. A professional work should not be responsible/aware of any daughter's wedding or personal loans. Developed countries have massive taxes to support you on unemployment. Risk of layoff must be part of your salary expectation. Young Startups always pay more than stable companies.

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