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Unfortunately US culture is to keep working if you don't want to lose your job.

by miguelmota 7y ago

andreygrehov 7y ago
This is not true and highly depends on employer.
- komali2 7y ago
  https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/29/facts-about-american-workers/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/29/facts-about... 71% of all nonfarm payroll employees, or, 107.8 million people are in the service sector. Chop out "professional and business services" and "education and health services," industries you could reasonably assume people have sick days in, and you have 43mil people who it is reasonable to assume can't take a sick day. https://www.popsci.com/flu-season-paid-sick-leave/ https://www.popsci.com/flu-season-paid-sick-leave/
- miguelmota 7y ago
  A large portion of jobs in US are service jobs which are easily replaceable by other people, and service jobs are low paying so losing a days work can be financially catastrophic for the person.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  Around half of all workers in the US are paid hourly. "Sick day" means "no pay" for most of them. edit: according to most recent data [0] it's actually 58.5% of all workers are hourly. Do they get paid sick leave? [0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/home.htm
  - andreygrehov 7y ago
    Sure, but if you're paid hourly, isn't "sick day/no pay" true for pretty much any country in the world?
whatshisface 7y ago
Better to lose 2% of your workforce permanently than lose 100% for two weeks. Why? Well, if your turnover is that employees only stay for one year on average (typical for properly managed software companies), then two weeks is 3.8% of that time: twice the man-week mortality rate of letting the illness roll through! (A big /s for anyone that didn't catch it.)
- koheripbal 7y ago
  2 weeks? More like 18 months until a vaccine is distributed.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  From the perspective of the government, this might be literally true. 0.2% mortality rate for people of working age, so if we assume an average of 25 more productive years then that's losing (0.002 * 25 years = 18.26 days) a bit less than three weeks of productivity per person. Add in another week off for everyone who gets the virus, and there's less work disruption from having people continue as normal, take time off when they get sick, and go back to work than there would be from "quarantine everyone for a month", like China did in Wuhan. (This means that you lose >20% of your retiree population, of course - but that's not really a downside from the perspective of someone looking at Social Security contributions and actuarial tables)
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Indeed. And honestly, I'm not sure if I could blame anyone in government for thinking this way. In our industry, majority of companies can easily continue operating under WFH regime. But most other industries can't. The damage to the economy must be kept in check, or otherwise the virus will be the least of everyone's worry. Quarantine is livable for as long as enough food is still made and delivered for everyone, and utilities are maintained.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      Not to mention that taking extremely disruptive steps to minimize spread of the virus is only worthwhile (in any sense) if it actually works. I could certainly see the CDC determining that it wouldn't work, even with a month-long shelter-in-place order - and while consigning a few percent of the population to death-by-superflu is harsh, having those people die despite giving the economy a 10% haircut for the year would be worse.
refurb 7y ago
Really? My US company just instituted the same policy.

Unfortunately US culture is to keep working if you don't want to lose your job.

andreygrehov 7y ago

This is not true and highly depends on employer.

komali2 7y ago
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/29/facts-about-american-workers/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/29/facts-about... 71% of all nonfarm payroll employees, or, 107.8 million people are in the service sector. Chop out "professional and business services" and "education and health services," industries you could reasonably assume people have sick days in, and you have 43mil people who it is reasonable to assume can't take a sick day. https://www.popsci.com/flu-season-paid-sick-leave/ https://www.popsci.com/flu-season-paid-sick-leave/
miguelmota 7y ago
A large portion of jobs in US are service jobs which are easily replaceable by other people, and service jobs are low paying so losing a days work can be financially catastrophic for the person.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
Around half of all workers in the US are paid hourly. "Sick day" means "no pay" for most of them. edit: according to most recent data [0] it's actually 58.5% of all workers are hourly. Do they get paid sick leave? [0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/home.htm
- andreygrehov 7y ago
  Sure, but if you're paid hourly, isn't "sick day/no pay" true for pretty much any country in the world?

whatshisface 7y ago

Better to lose 2% of your workforce permanently than lose 100% for two weeks. Why? Well, if your turnover is that employees only stay for one year on average (typical for properly managed software companies), then two weeks is 3.8% of that time: twice the man-week mortality rate of letting the illness roll through! (A big /s for anyone that didn't catch it.)

koheripbal 7y ago
2 weeks? More like 18 months until a vaccine is distributed.
DuskStar 7y ago
From the perspective of the government, this might be literally true. 0.2% mortality rate for people of working age, so if we assume an average of 25 more productive years then that's losing (0.002 * 25 years = 18.26 days) a bit less than three weeks of productivity per person. Add in another week off for everyone who gets the virus, and there's less work disruption from having people continue as normal, take time off when they get sick, and go back to work than there would be from "quarantine everyone for a month", like China did in Wuhan. (This means that you lose >20% of your retiree population, of course - but that's not really a downside from the perspective of someone looking at Social Security contributions and actuarial tables)
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Indeed. And honestly, I'm not sure if I could blame anyone in government for thinking this way. In our industry, majority of companies can easily continue operating under WFH regime. But most other industries can't. The damage to the economy must be kept in check, or otherwise the virus will be the least of everyone's worry. Quarantine is livable for as long as enough food is still made and delivered for everyone, and utilities are maintained.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    Not to mention that taking extremely disruptive steps to minimize spread of the virus is only worthwhile (in any sense) if it actually works. I could certainly see the CDC determining that it wouldn't work, even with a month-long shelter-in-place order - and while consigning a few percent of the population to death-by-superflu is harsh, having those people die despite giving the economy a 10% haircut for the year would be worse.

refurb 7y ago

Really? My US company just instituted the same policy.