6 ms·

A concept that is utterly foreign and bizarre to most other people in Western countries, including myself in New Zealand.

CptJamesCook 10y ago
Have you noticed how nearly all great companies are now being started in America. Wonder why?
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  You think it's because of "at will" employment?
  - stale2002 10y ago
    At will employment is a symptom, not a cause. The reason why is be because starting a company in America is generally a good idea
  - ythn 10y ago
    No, it's because the companies aren't encumbered with a million layers of bureaucracy and regulation ensuring every single employee has every single possible safety net in the world preventing every single type of failure known.
    - inflagranti 10y ago
      Sure that must be the only reason, no-one would think of ever creating a company in socialist Europe. Having access to a huge, uniform market must not factor into this at all. Or any 100 other good reasons you're ignoring from a complex spectrum; no it must be the one and only one that fits your narrative.
  - adevine 10y ago
    Yes, that's part of it. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, but when it's easy to fire people, it also makes it a lot easier to hire them, because there is less of a risk when you make a mistake or need to change direction of your business. While it's an upheaval to be sure, the vast majority of these laid-off employees have in-demand skills in a growing industry. Who I really feel for is people who get laid off in shrinking industries, where it's basically a game of musical chairs and there are fewer seats each round.
  - CptJamesCook 10y ago
    I think it's because of our capitalist economy, a significant portion of which is the ability to hire and fire employees based on performance.
- jensvdh 10y ago
  You think its gonna stay that way after having voted a protectionist in office?
  - CptJamesCook 10y ago
    I think that Trump is going to be outstanding for American businesses. But we will see.
- lukealization 10y ago
  Many great companies are started overseas. Many great companies are also started in America. To suggest there is a correlation between startup success rate and at will employment would require, by golly, empirical data. Do you have any on hand?
  - CptJamesCook 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r... Leaving off energy companies, 9 out of the top 16 companies are American. 4.5% of the world's population, ~55% of the world's great companies. I'm sure at will employment alone wouldn't crush the American economy. But it'd be a hit to it.
paulddraper 10y ago
Off-topic: Is New Zealand really a western country? Seems like Japan, Philippines, etc. would be western too.
- brennebeck 10y ago
  The Philippines is pretty westernized (primarily because of Spanish and American occupation). I don't think Japan would be considered as westernized.
djsumdog 10y ago
I worked in NZ for three years. The company I worked for rarely had redundancies. But we did have two classes of people who left. People who got a big card and gave a speech at weekly drinks, and people who just left during the day and said "goodbye" to everyone on their teams. Once one of the former said goodbye after all the announcements after work drinks. It was really awkward. We had a guy on my team just tell us "today is my last day," out of nowhere. He was in the director's office earlier. We suspected these people were given some money and told to quit, rather than keep them on. It was usually people who turned out to not really be great engineers and I think they just wanted to get rid of them without having to fire them. I also worked in Australia for a year. My first day on the job, my hiring manager, who had been with the company for six years, was made redundant.
mindcrime 10y ago
A concept that is utterly foreign and bizarre to most other people in Western countries, including myself in New Zealand. Great, now you know one reason that Americans prefer America to other countries. A lot of us are quite happy with the "at will" rules that are common in the US. Note, however, that these rules are largely at the state, not federal, level, and not all state are "at will".
- astronautjones 10y ago
  > . A lot of us are quite happy with the "at will" rules that are common in the US. ignorance is bliss
seibelj 10y ago
If you operated a business, how would you feel being forced by the government to keep someone on your payroll who was not a good worker?
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  That's not 'no reason'. Even for places that have pro-employee workplace laws there's often provisions for getting rid of employees who can't do what you pay them to do.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    > employees who can't do what you pay them to do What if they can do what you pay them to do, but you can no longer afford them? That's exactly what a layoff is...the result of the fact that employing this group of people is economically unsensible.
    - SolaceQuantum 10y ago
      I think the issue here is "at-will" policies in terms of firing people for no reason. Layoffs are an explicit reason.
    - erinnh 10y ago
      There are different cases on "not able to afford". In Germany cases where companies truly cannot afford the person the following rules apply: 1. there is absolutely no way for the person to conduct different work inside the company 2. the company needs to choose those that can more easily afford to be laid off. (employment duration, young, single etc) 3. the place of work has to permanently be gone Beforehand, the company has to talk to the workers council though so they can possibly find solutions to the problem without having to fire people.
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        The flip side of such rules is it makes companies reluctant to hire in the first place. Companies would be a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring someone if they know that they can let them go easily if things don't work out.
kalleboo 10y ago
Personally I prefer the Danish idea of "Flexicurity", where it's easy to hire and easy to fire, but there are strong welfare protections guaranteed by the state if you do end up unemployed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity

CptJamesCook 10y ago

Have you noticed how nearly all great companies are now being started in America. Wonder why?

madeofpalk 10y ago
You think it's because of "at will" employment?
- stale2002 10y ago
  At will employment is a symptom, not a cause. The reason why is be because starting a company in America is generally a good idea
- ythn 10y ago
  No, it's because the companies aren't encumbered with a million layers of bureaucracy and regulation ensuring every single employee has every single possible safety net in the world preventing every single type of failure known.
  - inflagranti 10y ago
    Sure that must be the only reason, no-one would think of ever creating a company in socialist Europe. Having access to a huge, uniform market must not factor into this at all. Or any 100 other good reasons you're ignoring from a complex spectrum; no it must be the one and only one that fits your narrative.
- adevine 10y ago
  Yes, that's part of it. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, but when it's easy to fire people, it also makes it a lot easier to hire them, because there is less of a risk when you make a mistake or need to change direction of your business. While it's an upheaval to be sure, the vast majority of these laid-off employees have in-demand skills in a growing industry. Who I really feel for is people who get laid off in shrinking industries, where it's basically a game of musical chairs and there are fewer seats each round.
- CptJamesCook 10y ago
  I think it's because of our capitalist economy, a significant portion of which is the ability to hire and fire employees based on performance.
jensvdh 10y ago
You think its gonna stay that way after having voted a protectionist in office?
- CptJamesCook 10y ago
  I think that Trump is going to be outstanding for American businesses. But we will see.
lukealization 10y ago
Many great companies are started overseas. Many great companies are also started in America. To suggest there is a correlation between startup success rate and at will employment would require, by golly, empirical data. Do you have any on hand?
- CptJamesCook 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r... Leaving off energy companies, 9 out of the top 16 companies are American. 4.5% of the world's population, ~55% of the world's great companies. I'm sure at will employment alone wouldn't crush the American economy. But it'd be a hit to it.

paulddraper 10y ago

Off-topic: Is New Zealand really a western country? Seems like Japan, Philippines, etc. would be western too.

brennebeck 10y ago
The Philippines is pretty westernized (primarily because of Spanish and American occupation). I don't think Japan would be considered as westernized.

djsumdog 10y ago

I worked in NZ for three years. The company I worked for rarely had redundancies. But we did have two classes of people who left. People who got a big card and gave a speech at weekly drinks, and people who just left during the day and said "goodbye" to everyone on their teams. Once one of the former said goodbye after all the announcements after work drinks. It was really awkward. We had a guy on my team just tell us "today is my last day," out of nowhere. He was in the director's office earlier. We suspected these people were given some money and told to quit, rather than keep them on. It was usually people who turned out to not really be great engineers and I think they just wanted to get rid of them without having to fire them. I also worked in Australia for a year. My first day on the job, my hiring manager, who had been with the company for six years, was made redundant.

mindcrime 10y ago

A concept that is utterly foreign and bizarre to most other people in Western countries, including myself in New Zealand. Great, now you know one reason that Americans prefer America to other countries. A lot of us are quite happy with the "at will" rules that are common in the US. Note, however, that these rules are largely at the state, not federal, level, and not all state are "at will".

astronautjones 10y ago
> . A lot of us are quite happy with the "at will" rules that are common in the US. ignorance is bliss

seibelj 10y ago

If you operated a business, how would you feel being forced by the government to keep someone on your payroll who was not a good worker?

madeofpalk 10y ago
That's not 'no reason'. Even for places that have pro-employee workplace laws there's often provisions for getting rid of employees who can't do what you pay them to do.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  > employees who can't do what you pay them to do What if they can do what you pay them to do, but you can no longer afford them? That's exactly what a layoff is...the result of the fact that employing this group of people is economically unsensible.
  - SolaceQuantum 10y ago
    I think the issue here is "at-will" policies in terms of firing people for no reason. Layoffs are an explicit reason.
  - erinnh 10y ago
    There are different cases on "not able to afford". In Germany cases where companies truly cannot afford the person the following rules apply: 1. there is absolutely no way for the person to conduct different work inside the company 2. the company needs to choose those that can more easily afford to be laid off. (employment duration, young, single etc) 3. the place of work has to permanently be gone Beforehand, the company has to talk to the workers council though so they can possibly find solutions to the problem without having to fire people.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      The flip side of such rules is it makes companies reluctant to hire in the first place. Companies would be a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring someone if they know that they can let them go easily if things don't work out.

kalleboo 10y ago

Personally I prefer the Danish idea of "Flexicurity", where it's easy to hire and easy to fire, but there are strong welfare protections guaranteed by the state if you do end up unemployed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity