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Normalising Layoffs/Firing

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Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#61

Post by ttoinou »

AndrewThrowaway wrote: post #48
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…

This is just so wrong on so many levels. > If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily. Unless it is another economical crisis and nobody is hiring? > In Europe where firing is almost impossible It is called "job security" - if you hired somebody, you "promised" them to pay a wage. If they are not needed anymore, you need to keep on promise and pay a wage. For at least some time. E.g. a few month of salary…

Most industries would deserve less barriers of entry and less legal protections, it would favor the little ones.

Of course employment is an exchange of promises between employer and employees to bring stability for less money and less risks. But if the exchange benefits both sides, there is no reason to forbid both parties to negotiate whatever they prefer. In Europe there are too many legal hurdles (called "protection" of course they're going to choose a positive word !)

If there is an economic crisis and you forbid firing, the only solution is to close companies. Societe re organizes itself at each crisis, so the people laid off need to find new ways

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#62

Post by oblio »

emoII wrote: post #44
lostlogin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If it's easy to fire you won't have to be as thorough when hiring because if the new employee doesn't fit - just waste him/her. If it's difficult to fire the company will put potential employees through hell before deciding. I don't think there's any country where the actual process of hiring someone is a legal nightmare

> If it's easy to fire you won't have to be as thorough when hiring because if the new employee doesn't fit - just waste him/her.

That's super bad for morale and companies generally don't do it unless high churn is normal (retail).

US companies have hiring processes which are HARDER to go through, not easier, on average, than European companies. For example background checks almost never happen, as well as reference requests.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#63

Post by ttoinou »

acatton wrote: post #32
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…

> In Europe where firing is almost impossible Assuming you mean the European Union by "Europe", this is 27 countries with 27 labour laws. I don't think this can be generalized. Only trade laws were unified in the EU. The labour laws diversity is made even wider if you include non EU countries like Switzerland or the Balkans. Just as an example Denmark follows the concept of Flexisecurity[1], easy to fire, but there i…

No I meant the geographical area. The EU is called the EU, the two should never be confused.

Good for Denmark ! Generalizations are never true. Specialized descriptions with all the cases covered on the other hand, are never read.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#64

Post by atemerev »

AndrewThrowaway wrote: post #48
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…

This is just so wrong on so many levels. > If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily. Unless it is another economical crisis and nobody is hiring? > In Europe where firing is almost impossible It is called "job security" - if you hired somebody, you "promised" them to pay a wage. If they are not needed anymore, you need to keep on promise and pay a wage. For at least some time. E.g. a few month of salary…

> If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily.

If there is another economic crisis and nobody is hiring, preventing companies to fire people will make the crisis even worse.

> It is called "job security"

An outdated concept of the XX century. No such thing in the post-industrial society.

> Unless you count all the mom and pop cafes all over the Mediterranean?

They are closing by thousands now, like in every other economic crisis. And Scandinavian startups — what Scandinavian startups? (Finland and Estonia are not Scandinavian countries, they have somewhat more business-friendly environment).

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#65

Post by shawabawa3 »

ttoinou wrote: post #52
randomsearch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ?

> "you can be hired easily"

Little bureaucracy/paperwork/barriers to starting work if a company wants to hire you

> "you will find a job easily"

There are actually companies that want to hire you

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#66

Post by junon »

meheleventyone wrote: post #51
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?

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.

Again, different countries, different laws. It is objectively NOT easy to fire people in Germany, for example.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#67

Post by Test0129 »

> We have normalised firing of people. I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation.

Not to sound crass here but it seems like you're fishing for virtue. Hiring and firing are normal. A company of 20,000 firing 20% of it's workforce sounds major but that's the industry. It's normalized because it is normal. The field of software engineering is so fungible 20% of employees losing their job is nearly meaningless in the current job market because you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm the next day. It's not like Ford closing a factory.

In other words, you need to relax and get out of your head a little. This industry is nothing like the factories. When 20% of factory workers lose their jobs everyone rightfully panics because it's not as easy to get another factory job (at least anymore...here in the west). 20% of tech employees getting laid off from a company is a nothingburger. 99% of these people will be able to take two weeks of free time and find another job for the same (or often better) pay. This is the definition of trivial.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#68

Post by rvense »

ttoinou wrote: post #36
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.

After the probation you need a really good reason and it costs a lot of money / paperwork / worker's right etc.

Absolutely not true in Denmark. A good reason can be something like "we are eliminating this position for strategic reasons", and the only money it will cost you is the three-six months (depending on how long they've been at the company) that you have to keep paying them, during which they are required to work as normal and act loyally.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#69

Post by junon »

rypskar wrote: post #53
acatton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it's pretty clear they were referring to the EU. No need for semantics wars.

Re: Normalising Layoffs/Firing

#70

Post by ttoinou »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #39
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…

> In Europe Tell me you’re an American without telling me you’re an American ;)

I'm from western Europe :)
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