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Google and Amazon Struggle to Lay Off Workers in Europe Due to Labor Laws

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Re: Google and Amazon Struggle to Lay Off Workers in Europe Due to Labor Laws

#5

EU labor laws protect the workers. I dont get why US Americans often think these laws dont benefit the workers.

They level out both the upside and the downside. If you can never fire people, you're going to be very very cautious about who you hire in the first place. That makes it much harder to get companies into a bidding war that'll actually raise your wages.

I've had a few European teammates, and they usually come to the U.S. because they can make 3-5x what they could in Europe. You'll see that a lot in HN comments, where people talk about USD$400K FAANG compensation and European developers will be like "Dang, WTF, I'm just sitting here with my €70K salary".

Right now, going into a bust, everybody wants downside protection. You often make more over the long-term accepting some risk to pick the upside when it's available, though.

Re: Google and Amazon Struggle to Lay Off Workers in Europe Due to Labor Laws

#6

EU labor laws protect the workers. I dont get why US Americans often think these laws dont benefit the workers.

I am not sure, at least for France, that it's "all workers".

For example the "code du travail" is excessively complex as it describes many kind of different private sector workers with very different rights.

As a rule of thumb if you work in a large company you are well protected. In other cases it's very different, which partly explains the violence in the society.

Re: Google and Amazon Struggle to Lay Off Workers in Europe Due to Labor Laws

#9

EU labor laws protect the workers. I dont get why US Americans often think these laws dont benefit the workers.

They level out both the upside and the downside. If you can never fire people, you're going to be very very cautious about who you hire in the first place. That makes it much harder to get companies into a bidding war that'll actually raise your wages. I've had a few European teammates, and they usually come to the U.S. because they can make 3-5x what they could in Europe. You'll see that a lot in HN comments, where…

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Re: Google and Amazon Struggle to Lay Off Workers in Europe Due to Labor Laws

#10

EU labor laws protect the workers. I dont get why US Americans often think these laws dont benefit the workers.

They level out both the upside and the downside. If you can never fire people, you're going to be very very cautious about who you hire in the first place. That makes it much harder to get companies into a bidding war that'll actually raise your wages. I've had a few European teammates, and they usually come to the U.S. because they can make 3-5x what they could in Europe. You'll see that a lot in HN comments, where…

You're assuming that the differences in wages between US and Europe are solely due to labor laws, which is quite a stretch, in my opinion.
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