18 ms·

Hiring and firing people in France is particularly hard. Most companies do not scale beyond 10 employees as after this threshold the regulatory burden increases

Hiring and firing people in France is particularly hard. Most companies do not scale beyond 10 employees as after this threshold the regulatory burden increases dramatically. Taxes on small to medium businesses are downright confiscatory. Most French people still see business owners as exploiters of their workers.

Rjevski 8y ago
Seconded. In French culture the “boss” is traditionally considered as an asshole. While I’m not saying there aren’t bad bosses out there, this kind of hostile culture towards management doesn’t really help anything. Taxes are awful as well, and filing them is a pain, even for a sole trader.
- rdm_blackhole 8y ago
  The social ladder is also broken. If you don't have the right diploma, no matter what your skills are you will never make it to the top. There is a real mindset of "Us vs Them" where "Them" is your boss or manager and you should despise them no matter what. I have left France 5 years ago due to those issues, I am now much happier in a country where your skills come first and nobody cares what you did before so long as you can do the job that is required of you. France will most likely never be like that.
  - walshemj 8y ago
    No change then years ago I interviewed with a uk subsidiary of a French company traveling 3-4 hours down to the south coast to do that. When they found I had not been to university - they looked at me like I had just taken a dump on the floor.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      No change - if anything, it's even worse, as the education requirement now means everyone has a degree (even though they might not have the passion nor the actual skill for it), and since the requirement no longer works as a filter for good candidates (I'd argue it never really worked, but now it's even worse) they are now requiring education and experience (for the same pay an intern would get in the UK). Even assuming you have a degree, how are you supposed to get the experience when pretty much all the jobs require previous experience? And no, the trick of applying despite not having experience and making up for it at the interview doesn't work - job requirements are very rigid in France; either you'll get rejected right at the start, or if you do make it through all the interviews they will still reject you at the end once they find out (and possibly even consider you as a fraud for applying anyway despite not having the experience).
      - adventured 8y ago
        What does the start-up scene in France look like in comparison, in regards to requiring the right university background? Do investors react similarly or do they care less about that?
        Ragnarork 8y ago
        I think it really depends on which start-up (and investors) you look at. I work at one that has two developers with no university degrees, and it wasn't an issue recruiting them, and I don't even think investors know about this. Implementation details, sort of.
      - acou_nPlusOne_t 8y ago
        So how do new people get in? Vitamin F, for family and relations. If you can go through a company and alot of people have the same name, you strt to grasp how such systems work. It really limits how far and where you can go to whoever your parents and family had connections to.
        walshemj 8y ago
        Helps to goto ENA :-) though the ENA students we had at BT where uniformly great
        baud147258 8y ago
        ENA is a shit school that has been producing pre-formated political cronies since its creation.
      - kworker 8y ago
        It can be an issue everywhere, not just in France.
        psergeant 8y ago
        I make a decent business bringing European developers — especially Germans — without degrees into the UK where nobody gives a shit.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    Totally agreed, and I left France as well for similar reasons. As an anecdote, even with my current experience (mid-range backend engineer) I would be struggling to get any IT job in France (because I didn't spend 5 years in higher education, which for them would trump my actual experience), and if I do get one by some miracle I'd be paid around the same that an intern would make in my current country (UK).
  - altharaz 8y ago
    The "glass ceiling" statement is true in big corporations (you'll never get to the top if you have not graduated from the top Engineering Schools, even if you have the skills). However, in Small & Medium Businesses, the startup movement has changed that a bit and the diploma is way less important than before. In terms of mindset, it seems that it is an important part of our culture: Philippe d'Iribarne calls it "The logic of Honor" [1]. To sum up the differences between French and US management (at least, according to Iribarne)[2]: - French relies on the concept of honor and duty. French employees consider that their honor and rank is way more important than their contract. You must manage with this in mind, and accept to be flexible in order to show consideration. You must also explain what are the limits so that employees will not go over them. Managers must give free space to their employees, being "invisible" when everything works out, respecting their honor, but must also go on the field when it goes wrong in order to show "how it's supposed to be done" and to inspire respect by example. - US relies on honesty, and on the transparency of a work contract. Managers must control the work on their contractors on a periodic base in order to show interest and respect, as part of the contractual relationship. => In France, according to this study, the "Us vs Them" should be accepted by management as long as the companies goes well. [1] https://www.ecole.org/fr/662/VA021205-ENG.pdf https://www.ecole.org/fr/662/VA021205-ENG.pdf [2] http://lirsa.cnam.fr/medias/fichier/diribarne2html__1263304768372.html#idees http://lirsa.cnam.fr/medias/fichier/diribarne2html__12633047...
  - peferron 8y ago
    The same happened to me. The French megacorp I was working for told me that my diploma level had a wage ceiling that they couldn't break. They offered to pay for training so I could get the required diploma in parallel of my work over a year or two. That was actually a very decent offer, but I was fed up with studying at the time so I just left. Now I'm working in the USA where nobody cares. I don't consider myself a rocket scientist, but it's still quite sad for France to see all the comments about other French people that were similarly pushed out. Last time I went to a meetup in SF about tech work in France, one of the French employers advertising there answered a question about the FR/US wage gap with "we aren't looking for mercenaries", essentially trying to fault workers' character for daring to ask for more. If I ever go back to France, it will be with solid plans on how to work remotely for a foreign company if the situation hasn't changed.
keyle 8y ago
Yep you've highlighted the main issues here. Kidnapping a CEO because the company isn't making any money and shutting its doors is the culmination of an ultra-unionised population. Don't get me wrong, unions were vital in the 40-70's as there was a clear abuse of the workforce. But today, the workforce can't wrap their heads around how a balance sheet works. And all those social laws make hiring and firing very hard, which is at the core of startup culture.
- Klinky 8y ago
  There needs to be a large safety net for people to fall back on, and then companies should be free to hire/fire as needed. Right now we have the gig economy trying to extract blood from a stone, and dinosaur unions that are inflexible, basically two extremes.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    And (in France), there is also a large social safety net, which is near UBI-level.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Really you know the definition of a low key civilised union strike is in the US "no ones been shot at yet"
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > Kidnapping a CEO because the company isn't making any money and shutting its doors is the culmination of an ultra-unionised population. I've heard about 'bossnapping' - is it literally as described? How on earth does this not end in bloodshed? If someone tried to kidnap me I would be immediately fighting for my life. Do the Police do hostage rescue? How are people not getting hurt?
  - JeanMarcS 8y ago
    Because it's mostly a stage play. My father was the lead of Human Resources (don't know how it translates in English) in a bank. He was once hold for a night during a strike, with 3 other persons. The union leader told him "It's not you sir, we like you as a person, but it's what you represents that we hold here". So they ordered pizzas and managed to sleep on coaches and were "freed" the next day. No one was hurt. He didn't liked it in any way, but what was the point of torching the offices down ? For the record, it was in the French West Indies, where unions are far more powerful than in metropolitan France.
chillidoor 8y ago
I wonder how big the contractor market is in France. I mean, contractors are easy to hire and fire so it could be a good compromise (at least in the short term).
- charlesdm 8y ago
  Not living in France, but Belgium (similar market to some extent): 99% of people don't want to work as a contract. They want a long term, "indefinite" employment contract.
  - chillidoor 8y ago
    Hah, yeah I suppose that would be far more attractive :)
  - JeanMarcS 8y ago
    This, exactly. France (and Belgiul as it seems) is a country where most people goal is to work for a government job, or equivalent. The status of a job for government is tha tyou CAN'T be fired ! Whatever stupid thing you do, whatever you work or not, you can't loose the job. It's also less payed than a job in a private company, and you almos know exactly what will be your income on the last year you'll work, but it's safe. And for big companies, the union are mandatory, so it's almost the same. Hard to be fired. And that's why beeing an entrepreneur in France is so hard and not understand by most people. Why take risks ?
  - Pmop 8y ago
    Interesting. Brazilian here. It seems that we have a lot in common. However, entrepreneurship and self made man/business culture has been getting increasingly popular (mostly at São Paulo) although lawmakers have not been following the trend. edit: formatting.
  - conradfr 8y ago
    That's because everything is structured around that, especially housing and banking, there is ZERO flexibility there. My major fear living in Paris is losing my apartment while being between jobs or even still in the trial period.
marticode 8y ago
Corporate tax rate is at 33% and 16% for small business, that doesn't strike me as particularly high, especially considered what it used to be in the US. There are many taxes on employee's but they fund their benefits, so that's something you don't have to provide separately to your employees and you can basically see it as part of the salary.
- adventured 8y ago
  It was increasingly a problem for US competitiveness. The US was bleeding a lot of successful companies to other countries for tax purposes, and it was getting worse (Pfizer tried to flee to Ireland). The average national rate in Europe is around 18%, and 21% for the EU. France is competing with this: Austria 25%, Spain 25%, Netherlands 25%, Italy 24%, Norway 23%, Denmark 22%, Sweden 22%, Portugal 21%, Slovakia 21%, Estonia 20%, Finland 20%, Iceland 20%, Russia 20%, Poland 19%, UK 19%, Czech 19%, Switzerland 18%, Ireland 12.5% Armenia 20%, Belarus 18%, Ukraine 18%, Romania 16%, Lithuania 15%, Albania 15%, Moldova 12%, Bulgaria 10%, Hungary 9% Staying up in the 30s would put France at a severe disadvantage vs the rest of the EU and Europe. Germany will also be forced to lower its rate eventually. The world average was near 40% ~35 year ago. The rate in the US came close to matching with the world average in the late 1980s. After that, the world average began declining consistently while the US remained high. When the world average is 22% and you're at 35%, you have a problem.
  - clon 8y ago
    What is the source of this information? In Estonia corporate income tax is essentially 0% - all re-invested income is tax-free, you only pay taxes when you eventually decide to pay out dividends (or salary). Which can be years, decades or never.
    - adventured 8y ago
      It's derived from KPMG's global tax tables for 2018, and confirmed from: https://investinestonia.com/business-in-estonia/taxation/ https://investinestonia.com/business-in-estonia/taxation/ Estonia's corporate income tax rate is not essentially zero, unless you plan to never distribute any profit. Otherwise it's 14-20%. It would be unusual for most businesses to never distribute profit. Last year Estonia collected something like €368m in corporate income taxes. Or €283 per capita. Equal to about 4% of their budget. Not a huge sum, also not anywhere close to zero. In the US for 2018, corporate income taxes will be about 5% to 6% of tax revenue (4% to 5% of the budget). The US corporate income taxes collected, broken down on a per capita basis, will be around $650 to $700 for 2018, for comparison. You can plainly see that Estonia collects corporate income taxes: https://www.stat.ee/53719 https://www.stat.ee/53719 https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-estonia.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-estonia.pdf The primary unusual thing Estonia does, is not tax profit until distribution.
Legogris 8y ago
I don't see how firing being harder is an issue. In France it's standard with the first several months being a probationary period where you can let the person go on the day, and only after that does it transform into a CDI. This period can be extended once. You can't really blame legislation for needing more than 6-8 months to realize that an employee is not a good fit.
- mattmanser 8y ago
  People can, and do, change.
- kolp 8y ago
  It's much more difficult to justify making someone redundant (licenciement économique) or to fire someone who has become an asshole or isn't performing. In other jurisdictions where I've worked, the employee gets their notice period. In France, the employer is often under implicit threat of an inspecteur du travail, a government work inspector, who will wrap the company up in shitload of bureaucratic audits.
  - kakwa_ 8y ago
    The likelihood of an employer firing people abusively is much greater than an employee being an asshole. It can indeed hinder start-ups a little because of uncertainty in any new ventures. But keep in mind that the vast majority of workers are not working in a startup environment. Relaxing a law to fit the legitimate needs of a small number of start-ups with an even smaller proportion of the work force at the detriments of the vast majority doesn't seem like a good idea. And I've seen people getting fired when redundant and/or toxic for the company. The administration will keep an eye on you if you fire more than a dozen employees per year (for a 1500 employees company), when firing "en masse" (ironically named "plan de sauvegarde de l'emploie") an employers has some obligations like giving opportunities for training, maybe finding another position in the firm, firing people close to retirement with some compensation until their actual retirement (pre-retraite). Lastly, this protection goes both ways, if you, as an employee, you end-over your resignation, you must remain in the company for 3 months, that way the employer has time to find a replacement and schedule a knowledge transfer in good conditions.

Rjevski 8y ago

Seconded. In French culture the “boss” is traditionally considered as an asshole. While I’m not saying there aren’t bad bosses out there, this kind of hostile culture towards management doesn’t really help anything. Taxes are awful as well, and filing them is a pain, even for a sole trader.

rdm_blackhole 8y ago
The social ladder is also broken. If you don't have the right diploma, no matter what your skills are you will never make it to the top. There is a real mindset of "Us vs Them" where "Them" is your boss or manager and you should despise them no matter what. I have left France 5 years ago due to those issues, I am now much happier in a country where your skills come first and nobody cares what you did before so long as you can do the job that is required of you. France will most likely never be like that.
- walshemj 8y ago
  No change then years ago I interviewed with a uk subsidiary of a French company traveling 3-4 hours down to the south coast to do that. When they found I had not been to university - they looked at me like I had just taken a dump on the floor.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    No change - if anything, it's even worse, as the education requirement now means everyone has a degree (even though they might not have the passion nor the actual skill for it), and since the requirement no longer works as a filter for good candidates (I'd argue it never really worked, but now it's even worse) they are now requiring education and experience (for the same pay an intern would get in the UK). Even assuming you have a degree, how are you supposed to get the experience when pretty much all the jobs require previous experience? And no, the trick of applying despite not having experience and making up for it at the interview doesn't work - job requirements are very rigid in France; either you'll get rejected right at the start, or if you do make it through all the interviews they will still reject you at the end once they find out (and possibly even consider you as a fraud for applying anyway despite not having the experience).
    - adventured 8y ago
      What does the start-up scene in France look like in comparison, in regards to requiring the right university background? Do investors react similarly or do they care less about that?
      - Ragnarork 8y ago
        I think it really depends on which start-up (and investors) you look at. I work at one that has two developers with no university degrees, and it wasn't an issue recruiting them, and I don't even think investors know about this. Implementation details, sort of.
    - acou_nPlusOne_t 8y ago
      So how do new people get in? Vitamin F, for family and relations. If you can go through a company and alot of people have the same name, you strt to grasp how such systems work. It really limits how far and where you can go to whoever your parents and family had connections to.
      - walshemj 8y ago
        Helps to goto ENA :-) though the ENA students we had at BT where uniformly great
        baud147258 8y ago
        ENA is a shit school that has been producing pre-formated political cronies since its creation.
    - kworker 8y ago
      It can be an issue everywhere, not just in France.
      - psergeant 8y ago
        I make a decent business bringing European developers — especially Germans — without degrees into the UK where nobody gives a shit.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Totally agreed, and I left France as well for similar reasons. As an anecdote, even with my current experience (mid-range backend engineer) I would be struggling to get any IT job in France (because I didn't spend 5 years in higher education, which for them would trump my actual experience), and if I do get one by some miracle I'd be paid around the same that an intern would make in my current country (UK).
- altharaz 8y ago
  The "glass ceiling" statement is true in big corporations (you'll never get to the top if you have not graduated from the top Engineering Schools, even if you have the skills). However, in Small & Medium Businesses, the startup movement has changed that a bit and the diploma is way less important than before. In terms of mindset, it seems that it is an important part of our culture: Philippe d'Iribarne calls it "The logic of Honor" [1]. To sum up the differences between French and US management (at least, according to Iribarne)[2]: - French relies on the concept of honor and duty. French employees consider that their honor and rank is way more important than their contract. You must manage with this in mind, and accept to be flexible in order to show consideration. You must also explain what are the limits so that employees will not go over them. Managers must give free space to their employees, being "invisible" when everything works out, respecting their honor, but must also go on the field when it goes wrong in order to show "how it's supposed to be done" and to inspire respect by example. - US relies on honesty, and on the transparency of a work contract. Managers must control the work on their contractors on a periodic base in order to show interest and respect, as part of the contractual relationship. => In France, according to this study, the "Us vs Them" should be accepted by management as long as the companies goes well. [1] https://www.ecole.org/fr/662/VA021205-ENG.pdf https://www.ecole.org/fr/662/VA021205-ENG.pdf [2] http://lirsa.cnam.fr/medias/fichier/diribarne2html__1263304768372.html#idees http://lirsa.cnam.fr/medias/fichier/diribarne2html__12633047...
- peferron 8y ago
  The same happened to me. The French megacorp I was working for told me that my diploma level had a wage ceiling that they couldn't break. They offered to pay for training so I could get the required diploma in parallel of my work over a year or two. That was actually a very decent offer, but I was fed up with studying at the time so I just left. Now I'm working in the USA where nobody cares. I don't consider myself a rocket scientist, but it's still quite sad for France to see all the comments about other French people that were similarly pushed out. Last time I went to a meetup in SF about tech work in France, one of the French employers advertising there answered a question about the FR/US wage gap with "we aren't looking for mercenaries", essentially trying to fault workers' character for daring to ask for more. If I ever go back to France, it will be with solid plans on how to work remotely for a foreign company if the situation hasn't changed.

keyle 8y ago

Yep you've highlighted the main issues here. Kidnapping a CEO because the company isn't making any money and shutting its doors is the culmination of an ultra-unionised population. Don't get me wrong, unions were vital in the 40-70's as there was a clear abuse of the workforce. But today, the workforce can't wrap their heads around how a balance sheet works. And all those social laws make hiring and firing very hard, which is at the core of startup culture.

Klinky 8y ago
There needs to be a large safety net for people to fall back on, and then companies should be free to hire/fire as needed. Right now we have the gig economy trying to extract blood from a stone, and dinosaur unions that are inflexible, basically two extremes.
- baud147258 8y ago
  And (in France), there is also a large social safety net, which is near UBI-level.
walshemj 8y ago
Really you know the definition of a low key civilised union strike is in the US "no ones been shot at yet"
chrisseaton 8y ago
> Kidnapping a CEO because the company isn't making any money and shutting its doors is the culmination of an ultra-unionised population. I've heard about 'bossnapping' - is it literally as described? How on earth does this not end in bloodshed? If someone tried to kidnap me I would be immediately fighting for my life. Do the Police do hostage rescue? How are people not getting hurt?
- JeanMarcS 8y ago
  Because it's mostly a stage play. My father was the lead of Human Resources (don't know how it translates in English) in a bank. He was once hold for a night during a strike, with 3 other persons. The union leader told him "It's not you sir, we like you as a person, but it's what you represents that we hold here". So they ordered pizzas and managed to sleep on coaches and were "freed" the next day. No one was hurt. He didn't liked it in any way, but what was the point of torching the offices down ? For the record, it was in the French West Indies, where unions are far more powerful than in metropolitan France.

chillidoor 8y ago

I wonder how big the contractor market is in France. I mean, contractors are easy to hire and fire so it could be a good compromise (at least in the short term).

charlesdm 8y ago
Not living in France, but Belgium (similar market to some extent): 99% of people don't want to work as a contract. They want a long term, "indefinite" employment contract.
- chillidoor 8y ago
  Hah, yeah I suppose that would be far more attractive :)
- JeanMarcS 8y ago
  This, exactly. France (and Belgiul as it seems) is a country where most people goal is to work for a government job, or equivalent. The status of a job for government is tha tyou CAN'T be fired ! Whatever stupid thing you do, whatever you work or not, you can't loose the job. It's also less payed than a job in a private company, and you almos know exactly what will be your income on the last year you'll work, but it's safe. And for big companies, the union are mandatory, so it's almost the same. Hard to be fired. And that's why beeing an entrepreneur in France is so hard and not understand by most people. Why take risks ?
- Pmop 8y ago
  Interesting. Brazilian here. It seems that we have a lot in common. However, entrepreneurship and self made man/business culture has been getting increasingly popular (mostly at São Paulo) although lawmakers have not been following the trend. edit: formatting.
- conradfr 8y ago
  That's because everything is structured around that, especially housing and banking, there is ZERO flexibility there. My major fear living in Paris is losing my apartment while being between jobs or even still in the trial period.

marticode 8y ago

Corporate tax rate is at 33% and 16% for small business, that doesn't strike me as particularly high, especially considered what it used to be in the US. There are many taxes on employee's but they fund their benefits, so that's something you don't have to provide separately to your employees and you can basically see it as part of the salary.

adventured 8y ago
It was increasingly a problem for US competitiveness. The US was bleeding a lot of successful companies to other countries for tax purposes, and it was getting worse (Pfizer tried to flee to Ireland). The average national rate in Europe is around 18%, and 21% for the EU. France is competing with this: Austria 25%, Spain 25%, Netherlands 25%, Italy 24%, Norway 23%, Denmark 22%, Sweden 22%, Portugal 21%, Slovakia 21%, Estonia 20%, Finland 20%, Iceland 20%, Russia 20%, Poland 19%, UK 19%, Czech 19%, Switzerland 18%, Ireland 12.5% Armenia 20%, Belarus 18%, Ukraine 18%, Romania 16%, Lithuania 15%, Albania 15%, Moldova 12%, Bulgaria 10%, Hungary 9% Staying up in the 30s would put France at a severe disadvantage vs the rest of the EU and Europe. Germany will also be forced to lower its rate eventually. The world average was near 40% ~35 year ago. The rate in the US came close to matching with the world average in the late 1980s. After that, the world average began declining consistently while the US remained high. When the world average is 22% and you're at 35%, you have a problem.
- clon 8y ago
  What is the source of this information? In Estonia corporate income tax is essentially 0% - all re-invested income is tax-free, you only pay taxes when you eventually decide to pay out dividends (or salary). Which can be years, decades or never.
  - adventured 8y ago
    It's derived from KPMG's global tax tables for 2018, and confirmed from: https://investinestonia.com/business-in-estonia/taxation/ https://investinestonia.com/business-in-estonia/taxation/ Estonia's corporate income tax rate is not essentially zero, unless you plan to never distribute any profit. Otherwise it's 14-20%. It would be unusual for most businesses to never distribute profit. Last year Estonia collected something like €368m in corporate income taxes. Or €283 per capita. Equal to about 4% of their budget. Not a huge sum, also not anywhere close to zero. In the US for 2018, corporate income taxes will be about 5% to 6% of tax revenue (4% to 5% of the budget). The US corporate income taxes collected, broken down on a per capita basis, will be around $650 to $700 for 2018, for comparison. You can plainly see that Estonia collects corporate income taxes: https://www.stat.ee/53719 https://www.stat.ee/53719 https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-estonia.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-estonia.pdf The primary unusual thing Estonia does, is not tax profit until distribution.

Legogris 8y ago

I don't see how firing being harder is an issue. In France it's standard with the first several months being a probationary period where you can let the person go on the day, and only after that does it transform into a CDI. This period can be extended once. You can't really blame legislation for needing more than 6-8 months to realize that an employee is not a good fit.

mattmanser 8y ago
People can, and do, change.
kolp 8y ago
It's much more difficult to justify making someone redundant (licenciement économique) or to fire someone who has become an asshole or isn't performing. In other jurisdictions where I've worked, the employee gets their notice period. In France, the employer is often under implicit threat of an inspecteur du travail, a government work inspector, who will wrap the company up in shitload of bureaucratic audits.
- kakwa_ 8y ago
  The likelihood of an employer firing people abusively is much greater than an employee being an asshole. It can indeed hinder start-ups a little because of uncertainty in any new ventures. But keep in mind that the vast majority of workers are not working in a startup environment. Relaxing a law to fit the legitimate needs of a small number of start-ups with an even smaller proportion of the work force at the detriments of the vast majority doesn't seem like a good idea. And I've seen people getting fired when redundant and/or toxic for the company. The administration will keep an eye on you if you fire more than a dozen employees per year (for a 1500 employees company), when firing "en masse" (ironically named "plan de sauvegarde de l'emploie") an employers has some obligations like giving opportunities for training, maybe finding another position in the firm, firing people close to retirement with some compensation until their actual retirement (pre-retraite). Lastly, this protection goes both ways, if you, as an employee, you end-over your resignation, you must remain in the company for 3 months, that way the employer has time to find a replacement and schedule a knowledge transfer in good conditions.