10 ms·

Can confirm, I run a business. The biggest expense to my company are the employees. All the regulatory requirements and bullshit that comes along with it, not t

by um_ya 9y ago

Can confirm, I run a business. The biggest expense to my company are the employees. All the regulatory requirements and bullshit that comes along with it, not to mention the risk of an employee suing the company for whatever reason. There's a lot of risk hiring employees, that's why I try to minimize the number of employees I have to hire, whenever possible.

chillwaves 9y ago
Your employees are also the profit generators so I would say it just comes with the territory.
- darawk 9y ago
  Yes, but his point is that the harder the regulatory regime makes it to fire a bad employee, the fewer employees he will be willing to hire in the first place.
- exolymph 9y ago
  > Your employees are also the profit generators Not universally true.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago
Every company tries to minimize the number of employees. But the fact remains that the employee always takes on more risk, as being fired at the wrong time, say during the crisis we just had, might end up in homelessness. Yet companies love to pretend they are the ones taking the risk and need the right to abuse employees, fire then at will, don't oay a living wage and all that.
- darawk 9y ago
  That's because they are taking a risk. If you make it harder to fire people, companies simply won't hire them in the first place. The harder it is to fire someone, the more dangerous it is to hire them. The more cautious employers will be about hiring in the first place. This is a real problem in countries that have strict firing laws.
  - Tehnix 9y ago
    >simply won't hire them in the first place Except that is simply not true, and very easily proven false simply by showing countries with actual employee protection and unions like e.g. Denmark.
    - zkomp 9y ago
      It is not black and white though, I'm in sweden. Companies will of course hire out of necessity, but strive as much as possible to not do it - outsource, consultants, temp workers, move abroad etc etc
      - vidarh 9y ago
        But they do that too everywhere. I'm Norwegian. I've been a co-founder of companies both in Norway and the UK. I see little evidence that it makes all that much difference. On one hand you do take a somewhat greater risk in terms of hiring in Norway, but conversely the ability to fire much more easily does not get exercised much. Of course that's no help for those who end up being affected. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in Norway not only is it harder to fire someone, but terminating an employment contract is normally with 3 months mutual notice. So you risk bad hires, but you also don't risk essential staff members disappearing overnight very often, as serving out the 3 months notice is normal and expected. That makes companies with small teams less vulnerable in that respect. Overall I don't really know if it makes much difference to employers. I hasn't seemed like that for me. But it makes a big difference for employees.
    - narag 9y ago
      The effect of workforce excesive protection is not the same on individual companies as on a country as a whole. Individual companies won't hire if some law hits them specifically, the same as if they're cash strapped, lost a big customer or some raw materials they need raise their price. For a country it's loss of competitiveness and more long term. The questions are more like: can we as a country afford this law? is individual suffering worth the wealth create?
skookumchuck 9y ago
Simply put, the harder it is to fire someone, the harder it will be to get a job.
- Zanni 9y ago
  Came here to say exactly this. Barriers to exit are barriers to entry.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  No - because job availability depends on other considerations too. Strangely, European countries with more humane employment laws don’t have correspondingly higher unemployment.
  - ptaipale 9y ago
    Depends on what you mean by "more humane" but U.S. has lower unemployment than OECD average, and European countries mostly have higher. In particular, France and Italy, known for how difficult it is to dismiss employees both individually and in masses, have high unemployment. North European countries, where individual dismissal is difficult but mass dismissal (restructuring) is easy, fare better. Germany, also with quite rigid employment laws, has low unemployment. As the dominant euro member it is basically running the monetary policy of the whole continent from its own needs. Data: http://www.oecd.org/employment/ministerial/employment-in-figures.htm http://www.oecd.org/employment/ministerial/employment-in-fig...
    - stephen_g 9y ago
      It’s difficult to compare though, because of other factors. I believe the main one between countries like France and Italy and Germany is actually the Euro currency. It’s generally considered to be overvalued compared to France and Italy’s economies and undervalued compared to Germany’s. This makes Germany’s exports extremely competitive (at the expense of costlier imports) which has spurred on their ability to build up a huge manufacturing sector and run a massive trade surplus. France and Italy, on the other hand, enjoy cheaper imports at the expense of less competitive export industries, and unsurprisingly have a trade deficit. Differences in inflation rate, etc. between the Eurozone countries which might otherwise be balanced out by flexible exchange rates can’t be. Instead you get ‘internal devaluation’ which often means higher unemployment. How federal systems get around this (like how all the states in the US using the same currency) is having the Federal Government tax and spend which can balance a lot of that out. Europe doesn’t have that, but eventually will have to or split back into individual currencies. I believe this is also why gold standard systems have always failed eventually too - they require fixed exchange rates and even with rebalancing every now and then you can’t be as effective as a floating exchange rate.
your-nanny 9y ago
Considering how many times companies (usually run by young ambitious entrepreneurs) tried to pay me less than was promised, I'd say that employees take on quite a bit of risk too.
bedhead 9y ago
Agree completely. I got rid of my employees and now outsource everything. I'll never have another full-time employee ever again, if I need someone they are going to work as a consultant and get a 1099. For every guy like this one at Marriot, there are 1,000 who have genuine problems and need immediate firing.

by um_ya 9y ago

chillwaves 9y ago

Your employees are also the profit generators so I would say it just comes with the territory.

darawk 9y ago
Yes, but his point is that the harder the regulatory regime makes it to fire a bad employee, the fewer employees he will be willing to hire in the first place.
exolymph 9y ago
> Your employees are also the profit generators Not universally true.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago

Every company tries to minimize the number of employees. But the fact remains that the employee always takes on more risk, as being fired at the wrong time, say during the crisis we just had, might end up in homelessness. Yet companies love to pretend they are the ones taking the risk and need the right to abuse employees, fire then at will, don't oay a living wage and all that.

darawk 9y ago
That's because they are taking a risk. If you make it harder to fire people, companies simply won't hire them in the first place. The harder it is to fire someone, the more dangerous it is to hire them. The more cautious employers will be about hiring in the first place. This is a real problem in countries that have strict firing laws.
- Tehnix 9y ago
  >simply won't hire them in the first place Except that is simply not true, and very easily proven false simply by showing countries with actual employee protection and unions like e.g. Denmark.
  - zkomp 9y ago
    It is not black and white though, I'm in sweden. Companies will of course hire out of necessity, but strive as much as possible to not do it - outsource, consultants, temp workers, move abroad etc etc
    - vidarh 9y ago
      But they do that too everywhere. I'm Norwegian. I've been a co-founder of companies both in Norway and the UK. I see little evidence that it makes all that much difference. On one hand you do take a somewhat greater risk in terms of hiring in Norway, but conversely the ability to fire much more easily does not get exercised much. Of course that's no help for those who end up being affected. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in Norway not only is it harder to fire someone, but terminating an employment contract is normally with 3 months mutual notice. So you risk bad hires, but you also don't risk essential staff members disappearing overnight very often, as serving out the 3 months notice is normal and expected. That makes companies with small teams less vulnerable in that respect. Overall I don't really know if it makes much difference to employers. I hasn't seemed like that for me. But it makes a big difference for employees.
  - narag 9y ago
    The effect of workforce excesive protection is not the same on individual companies as on a country as a whole. Individual companies won't hire if some law hits them specifically, the same as if they're cash strapped, lost a big customer or some raw materials they need raise their price. For a country it's loss of competitiveness and more long term. The questions are more like: can we as a country afford this law? is individual suffering worth the wealth create?

skookumchuck 9y ago

Simply put, the harder it is to fire someone, the harder it will be to get a job.

Zanni 9y ago
Came here to say exactly this. Barriers to exit are barriers to entry.
TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
No - because job availability depends on other considerations too. Strangely, European countries with more humane employment laws don’t have correspondingly higher unemployment.
- ptaipale 9y ago
  Depends on what you mean by "more humane" but U.S. has lower unemployment than OECD average, and European countries mostly have higher. In particular, France and Italy, known for how difficult it is to dismiss employees both individually and in masses, have high unemployment. North European countries, where individual dismissal is difficult but mass dismissal (restructuring) is easy, fare better. Germany, also with quite rigid employment laws, has low unemployment. As the dominant euro member it is basically running the monetary policy of the whole continent from its own needs. Data: http://www.oecd.org/employment/ministerial/employment-in-figures.htm http://www.oecd.org/employment/ministerial/employment-in-fig...
  - stephen_g 9y ago
    It’s difficult to compare though, because of other factors. I believe the main one between countries like France and Italy and Germany is actually the Euro currency. It’s generally considered to be overvalued compared to France and Italy’s economies and undervalued compared to Germany’s. This makes Germany’s exports extremely competitive (at the expense of costlier imports) which has spurred on their ability to build up a huge manufacturing sector and run a massive trade surplus. France and Italy, on the other hand, enjoy cheaper imports at the expense of less competitive export industries, and unsurprisingly have a trade deficit. Differences in inflation rate, etc. between the Eurozone countries which might otherwise be balanced out by flexible exchange rates can’t be. Instead you get ‘internal devaluation’ which often means higher unemployment. How federal systems get around this (like how all the states in the US using the same currency) is having the Federal Government tax and spend which can balance a lot of that out. Europe doesn’t have that, but eventually will have to or split back into individual currencies. I believe this is also why gold standard systems have always failed eventually too - they require fixed exchange rates and even with rebalancing every now and then you can’t be as effective as a floating exchange rate.

your-nanny 9y ago

Considering how many times companies (usually run by young ambitious entrepreneurs) tried to pay me less than was promised, I'd say that employees take on quite a bit of risk too.

bedhead 9y ago

Agree completely. I got rid of my employees and now outsource everything. I'll never have another full-time employee ever again, if I need someone they are going to work as a consultant and get a 1099. For every guy like this one at Marriot, there are 1,000 who have genuine problems and need immediate firing.