5 ms·

a quote i remembered from twitter: "This is the best time to get rid of employees". a startup based in London just fired 10% of their workforce. all were given

by kmlx 7y ago

a quote i remembered from twitter: "This is the best time to get rid of employees". a startup based in London just fired 10% of their workforce. all were given two options: government's furlough scheme where the state pays 80% of the salary, or outright dismissal. interestingly, half chose to quit.

alinde 7y ago
Do you have an idea if they chose to quit because they expect finding new jobs is easy right now, or any other aspect?
- damidekronik 7y ago
  It's definitely not easy, more candidates on the market -> higher competiton. As a side note, furlough only covers up to a certain salary level (2500 pounds I think).
  - Rastonbury 7y ago
    Demand side decrease as well
- wickerman 7y ago
  I don't know about other sides of IT, but as a data engineer in London I'm getting daily messages from recruiters offering contract/permanent positions. All the big companies are also hiring. So if you have a certain level of seniority I can imagine it's easier to land a new job now.
  - growlist 7y ago
    Yeah there's loads of work around from what I've seen.
sleepychu 7y ago
For a bit of context, at London startup the furlough scheme is very unlikely to be 80% of their salary because it is capped at 30k per year pre-tax/80% of your salary whichever is lower. That said, I'm surprised half of people turned down 2k/month to job hunt.
- 6nf 7y ago
  If they take the dismissal they get paid out immediately and they can immediately start getting government unemployment benefits. I think?
  - Angostura 7y ago
    > immediately start getting Ah, I see you've never applied for Universal Credit. Immediate, it ain't.
  - YawningAngel 7y ago
    You don't get government unemployment benefits in the UK if you have >16k in savings (i.e. most programmers, presumably)
    - shubb 7y ago
      London developers do not get paid well vs cost of living. I interviewed for a city based senior data engineer role at a large insurer and was supprised that they choked at 45K basic not much package. Generally uk dev pay is very bad compared to US or even other Europe. Contract work used to be basically the only way to make good money but this has now been nobbled. Not a good city to work in. As a result permie developers generally don't have a huge amount of a savings.
      - fennecfoxen 7y ago
        I was able to get Senior at £74k in London. Nothing to sneeze at in principle, save for the London cost of living. Moved to New York following Brexit, now making literally twice that. (Paying twice that for housing, too, but my housing is more like 15 minutes from work instead of 60 and I have a real subway option instead of putting up with Southern Rail and the strikes.)
Silhouette 7y ago
Under UK employment laws, you can't just force your staff to take a 20% pay cut without their consent, even if you're using the furlough scheme. And as others have pointed out, it may have been more than 20% in practice, if it was based on the furlough scheme where a cap applies. A lot of places that are genuinely up against it because of the virus are asking staff to take that hit voluntarily to help protect the business and their jobs, but that's different. If you make them redundant instead then you must give them a redundancy payment as well. However, this only protects employees after two years and in any case it's capped at a low level relative to typical salaries in fields like tech, so this might not have been worth much to the staff at a startup. Many employers do offer more than this voluntarily, but I wouldn't necessarily assume any startup did. Maybe the staff who chose to leave were more concerned about the future viability of the business, an extended pause in their career development, or both. Or maybe they really were offered voluntary redundancy on favourable terms. Curiously, just yesterday the UK government announced some new measures aimed directly at supporting startups, particularly tech startups in their early stages that aren't yet making money. Apparently at least someone in government recognises the business model and feels it will be better to protect that part of our economy during the downturn, which is a remarkably enlightened view given how badly successive governments in the UK have treated small businesses in the past.
- barbegal 7y ago
  Yeah lots of people aren't aware that you can refuse the UK furlough scheme. The company can then fire you but you could then take them to an employment tribunal and sue for unfair dismissal. At certain companies that are using furlough as an excuse to increase profits rather than to prevent job losses then you would probably win your case. Although obviously you should consult with a proper employment lawyer.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    As I understand it, most employment lawyers are advising clients to follow the same processes as they would for redundancy in selecting staff to be furloughed etc. This ensures that if an employee does decline then proper records will have been kept and proper processes followed to make them redundant in the normal way. Given that the explicit intent of the furlough scheme is to provide an alternative for employers who would otherwise have to make staff redundant, this doesn't seem unreasonable. Obviously this means employers who are abusing the system to try to force a pay cut on people or fire them by the back door when they weren't genuinely redundant may be out of luck. I'm not sure anyone is going to have much sympathy for employers doing that, though.
mr_isomies 7y ago
I wonder how the government will deal (or make provision for) with small business that are "furloughing" their staff while asking them to work from home. From the beginning, it was quite clear that this was bound to happen. Just like for the the stay at home order, I think the government is mishandling the response by being vague and noncommittal. This will simply make things worst in the long run.
neuronic 7y ago
Good luck getting a job in the upcoming massive recession.

by kmlx 7y ago

alinde 7y ago

Do you have an idea if they chose to quit because they expect finding new jobs is easy right now, or any other aspect?

damidekronik 7y ago
It's definitely not easy, more candidates on the market -> higher competiton. As a side note, furlough only covers up to a certain salary level (2500 pounds I think).
- Rastonbury 7y ago
  Demand side decrease as well
wickerman 7y ago
I don't know about other sides of IT, but as a data engineer in London I'm getting daily messages from recruiters offering contract/permanent positions. All the big companies are also hiring. So if you have a certain level of seniority I can imagine it's easier to land a new job now.
- growlist 7y ago
  Yeah there's loads of work around from what I've seen.

sleepychu 7y ago

For a bit of context, at London startup the furlough scheme is very unlikely to be 80% of their salary because it is capped at 30k per year pre-tax/80% of your salary whichever is lower. That said, I'm surprised half of people turned down 2k/month to job hunt.

6nf 7y ago
If they take the dismissal they get paid out immediately and they can immediately start getting government unemployment benefits. I think?
- Angostura 7y ago
  > immediately start getting Ah, I see you've never applied for Universal Credit. Immediate, it ain't.
- YawningAngel 7y ago
  You don't get government unemployment benefits in the UK if you have >16k in savings (i.e. most programmers, presumably)
  - shubb 7y ago
    London developers do not get paid well vs cost of living. I interviewed for a city based senior data engineer role at a large insurer and was supprised that they choked at 45K basic not much package. Generally uk dev pay is very bad compared to US or even other Europe. Contract work used to be basically the only way to make good money but this has now been nobbled. Not a good city to work in. As a result permie developers generally don't have a huge amount of a savings.
    - fennecfoxen 7y ago
      I was able to get Senior at £74k in London. Nothing to sneeze at in principle, save for the London cost of living. Moved to New York following Brexit, now making literally twice that. (Paying twice that for housing, too, but my housing is more like 15 minutes from work instead of 60 and I have a real subway option instead of putting up with Southern Rail and the strikes.)

Silhouette 7y ago

Under UK employment laws, you can't just force your staff to take a 20% pay cut without their consent, even if you're using the furlough scheme. And as others have pointed out, it may have been more than 20% in practice, if it was based on the furlough scheme where a cap applies. A lot of places that are genuinely up against it because of the virus are asking staff to take that hit voluntarily to help protect the business and their jobs, but that's different. If you make them redundant instead then you must give them a redundancy payment as well. However, this only protects employees after two years and in any case it's capped at a low level relative to typical salaries in fields like tech, so this might not have been worth much to the staff at a startup. Many employers do offer more than this voluntarily, but I wouldn't necessarily assume any startup did. Maybe the staff who chose to leave were more concerned about the future viability of the business, an extended pause in their career development, or both. Or maybe they really were offered voluntary redundancy on favourable terms. Curiously, just yesterday the UK government announced some new measures aimed directly at supporting startups, particularly tech startups in their early stages that aren't yet making money. Apparently at least someone in government recognises the business model and feels it will be better to protect that part of our economy during the downturn, which is a remarkably enlightened view given how badly successive governments in the UK have treated small businesses in the past.

barbegal 7y ago
Yeah lots of people aren't aware that you can refuse the UK furlough scheme. The company can then fire you but you could then take them to an employment tribunal and sue for unfair dismissal. At certain companies that are using furlough as an excuse to increase profits rather than to prevent job losses then you would probably win your case. Although obviously you should consult with a proper employment lawyer.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  As I understand it, most employment lawyers are advising clients to follow the same processes as they would for redundancy in selecting staff to be furloughed etc. This ensures that if an employee does decline then proper records will have been kept and proper processes followed to make them redundant in the normal way. Given that the explicit intent of the furlough scheme is to provide an alternative for employers who would otherwise have to make staff redundant, this doesn't seem unreasonable. Obviously this means employers who are abusing the system to try to force a pay cut on people or fire them by the back door when they weren't genuinely redundant may be out of luck. I'm not sure anyone is going to have much sympathy for employers doing that, though.

mr_isomies 7y ago

I wonder how the government will deal (or make provision for) with small business that are "furloughing" their staff while asking them to work from home. From the beginning, it was quite clear that this was bound to happen. Just like for the the stay at home order, I think the government is mishandling the response by being vague and noncommittal. This will simply make things worst in the long run.

neuronic 7y ago

Good luck getting a job in the upcoming massive recession.