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No severance?! I, as an expat, am absolutely grateful and have changed my tune on the “European welfare state” trope to “this just makes sense”. I got let go f
by gigatexal 7y ago
No severance?!
I, as an expat, am absolutely grateful and have changed my tune on the “European welfare state” trope to “this just makes sense”. I got let go from a Berlin based fintech and got 3 months pay plus a small severance. They did this likely because funding fell apart during the pandemic but it could have also been to cull people that they didn’t need but they did do right by us.
- WhyNotHugo 7y agoSurprisingly, severance is also mandatory in Argentina and many other "under development" countries. I'm absolutely amazed at how people in the US are so against severance being mandatory.
- doctorwhat 7y agoAmericans are amazing like that. "Free healthcare? That's communism!!!"
- neuronic 7y agoCan we stop calling this free healthcare? It's not free. It's just vastly better organized in a way that (largely) protects consumers from capitalism where it doesn't belong.
- GarrisonPrime 7y agoArgentina and Germany are hardly in rosy positions at the moment. “I like free money” is hardly a good argument to support statements like “it just makes sense”.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agowhat country is in a rosy position at the moment? and what is that country's worker's rights position?
- NicoJuicy 7y ago> Argentina and Germany are hardly in rosy positions at the moment. That's not an argument also, Germany is actually doing very well for everyone ( civilians, business, healthcare, innovation, ...) They are almost launching their contact-tracing app, while the poor, that need it, in the US get 1200$ in the next 3-6 months, lol. The rich get 1.700.000 $ though, that's "normal". Good job! /s Perhaps you were talking about the federal state saying that states have to look for their own medical supplies? That's nice
- sneak 7y agoIt’s a violation of consent. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, with no further obligations or liability. That’s key in a free society. Employment is a transaction, like any other. Doing some business yesterday is no guarantee of business tomorrow.
- Scarblac 7y agoEmployees are in a much weaker position than companies, they are not in an equal position so consent doesn't come into the equation, as far as I'm concerned.
- sneak 7y agoYes, that’s the common argument for it (which of course does not address the violation of consent issue). I was simply replying to WhyNotHugo’s amazement and trying to clarify why many people feel the way that they do.
- omginternets 7y agoBy that logic, all contracts are violations of consent. You'll forgive us for not being convinced by your argument.
- sneak 7y agoI’m not sure I follow that logic. Written, signed contracts where the agreeing parties are not being coerced is presently our gold standard for opt-in consent.
- omginternets 7y ago>Written, signed contracts where the agreeing parties are not being coerced is presently our gold standard for opt-in consent. Except that you can't later withdraw your consent. You said that was "a violation of consent". Which is it?
- 7y ago
- kofejnik 7y agointeresting... what if mandatory severance and other (supposedly) nice things are the reason those countries are underdeveloped?
- zwirbl 7y agothose countries like Germany, Austria, etc?
- eitland 7y agoLet's add Norway and probably Sweden as well to that list.
- neffy 7y agoAnd Iceland, which is as free-wheeling a capitalistic state as anyone could want under the hood. Making employers responsible for severance pay is a way of aligning costs with information asymmetry, and also trying to make employers at least a little sensitive to the impact their whims can have on real people's lives.
- CraigJPerry 7y agoSeems unlikely to find a mono-causal relationship in something as complex as a national economy. It’s interesting though, how would you go about establishing a proof?
- fakedang 7y agoI wouldn't mind a stance which promotes human welfare over economic growth.
- brigandish 7y agoSince economic growth tends to go hand in hand with better access to health services and greater social freedom, it does. I always enjoy Hans Rosling going through the stats, if you’ve time it’s well worth it https://youtu.be/FACK2knC08E https://youtu.be/FACK2knC08E
- saiya-jin 7y agoWell its a society that lacks some basic societal qualities many others find quite necessary to call the society well developed. Like taking care of those in need, weak, disabled etc. The thing is, the state is setup to prefer overall economic performance over 'being nice and generous', so tons of shortsighted people think along the lines of 'well I am doing fine, I don't want to support others in need, thus I can have more' and so on. The logic is stupid of course, we all live in society so well-being of your fellow countrymen transform into your well-being too in many direct and indirect ways. But if you are told from birth your country is the best, has the best system, all others are worse, cash is the king and your job is the most important aspect of your worthiness as a human being, well... it ends up in similar system. Don't take me wrong, its fantastic to be super rich and powerful in US (just like anywhere else), its great to start/own company there, but it progressively sucks the more you are poorer, much faster than in any other western society.
- tinyhouse 7y agoI'm not very familiar with the topic. But my current and previous US companies both provide decent severance to let go employees. They do it mostly to ensure employees don't talk or try to sue. I assume most good companies in the US follow. It's also important that people can get unemployment benefits for at least 6 months after losing their job. I'm not sure how that works in the US. I'm guessing it changes per state like everything else in the US.
- tcard 7y agoOther things equal, if companies need to pay severance, employees get paid less each month, because companies need to take into account expected severance costs in their total labor costs and there's less money left for other benefits. So all employees effectively pay for layoffs, which goes against you if you're not the one that gets laid off. (I am very much in favor of mandatory severance and generally other kinds of safety nets.)
- hnhg 7y agoThis forgets the high likelihood that the amount that would have been paid as severance goes to the pockets of the owners and leadership. The market pays what the employees are worth, not what is left over after costs.
- onedognight 7y ago> So all employees effectively pay for layoffs, which goes against you if you're not the one that gets laid off. Or you could say that the company needs to save the profit generated by your position until it equals your anticipated severance before paying dividends from that profit. So it’s still a drag on profits, but it has nothing to do with other employees.
- ratww 7y ago> So all employees effectively pay for layoffs, which goes against you if you're not the one that gets laid off. Sounds like a very acceptable compromise. I'm happy to chip in. I'm also happy that I pay taxes for universal healthcare so that I can take advantage of that when I'm in a disadvantaged position, but that's me.
- altacc 7y agoHaving done budgeting for hiring employees in the UK, for small and medium sized companies, the factors that went into calculating staff costs never included any severance or redundancy factors. Paying redundancy is relatively rare, so doesn't need allocated funding until you're in that process. When you're employing people you're not already thinking about their future exit. You hire based on your growth, so you're usually optimistic about the future and thinking about employees being long term. If not you hire contractors, who you can lay off easily. Part of this is that you can't just fire people without good cause and without following a process. There are probationary periods to allow the hire to be let go if they don't work out in the first 6 months or so, but after that you're into a long "managing them out of the business" process that may or may not end up with a pay off.
- mathattack 7y agoThe theory of weaker led on severance is: 1 - If you make it too hard to let people go, companies will be less willing to hire. (You’ve added a cost to the employee) 2 - If you make the cost of severance too high, it will kill companies that might otherwise have a chance to squeak through. There are plenty of good arguments on the other side (companies offloading social costs to the govt, etc) but these two are consistent with economic theory on labor supply and demand.
- neuronic 7y agoYea, economic theories that all assume that consumers are rational actors. Thank you, next.
- have_you 7y ago>>Thank you, next. So have you run a business where you had to hire employees?
- jazzyk 7y agoYeah, but because it is o easy to fire, some companies (especially startups which just got some VC money) over-hire and then are forced to let people go. This creates a never-ending hamster-wheel of hiring-firing - not good for the employee and not good for the company. Also, if paying 1 month of severance is too much for a company, then perhaps it is not run well and should be allowed to fail?
- devin 7y agoToo reductive on your last comment. I want to agree with you, but the world is complex. Money doesn't grow on trees, and there's only so much that even a well run business can do. Particularly in the early stages of a company.
- tarsinge 7y agoI must admit that as a small business owner in France unfortunately I am unwilling to hire because it's so hard to let people go, so putting the weight only on companies is maybe not the answer.
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago> No severance?! I agree that no severance sucks. Although keep in mind that in theory, higher salaries should equal hire savings. The average developer in SF makes more than the average developer in Berlin (how much more... maybe 2X)? If you could make 100% more & forego a severance package, would you? It's not a real world choice, I'm just trying to offer context that one way to look at higher salaries is that you are getting cash more cash upfront instead in lieu of having a stronger social safety net. And people who work crap jobs just don't have a safety net, which is another conversation.
- CraigJPerry 7y agoI don’t think you can use raw salary in that comparison, it ignores cost of living differences
- balfirevic 7y agoIt doesn't matter, the difference is not enough, and the developer in SF is still much better off.
- Aeolun 7y agoThe developer in SF might be financially better off, but the developer in Berlin is better off in general.
- gigatexal 7y agoYeah I mean of course I’d like to make 250k and have huge stock options I’m just not that caliber of developer yet. But for devs that are and live in Germany (this has come up with my former German colleagues— whom I still consider friends) they are cognizant of the salaries of their American counterparts but the benefits of healthcare and the transit system and the access to all the good food and other European countries I think is a big win for them. I might be projecting but they could move their families to the states and take jobs with any of the big tech companies, my former teammates could, but they won’t. There’s such a thing as good enough income, and given that a lot is provided for here I understand that now, too.
- growlist 7y agoWhether the European social model is sustainable is another question. There are plenty of apparently reasonable economists that argue it is not.
- jventura 7y agoWhether the ${COUNTRY} social model is sustainable is another question. There are plenty of apparently reasonable ${PEOPLE} that argue it is not. ${COUNTRY} = "USA" ${PEOPLE} = "americans" it seems to compile as well...
- growlist 7y agoWhat does this contribute other than snarkiness?
- blaser-waffle 7y agoAmerican Capitalism sure as hell isn't. The rest of the world started down that path and now the rivers and oceans are choked with plastic, to the point there is a giant plastic island in the Pacific, and the world keeps getting warmer. Europe has problems, but they've had their periods of extreme expansion and contraction and learned their hard lessons.
- growlist 7y agoReally??? If you want to get into the environmental side of things there is endless ammo. We could start with Germany intervening to water down carbon emissions policy in order to protect its auto industry, and go from there...
- andor 7y agoI'm not going to disagree with you here. In politics, multiple positions need to be taken into account, and angry voters are to be avoided. The pressure on the car industry is still huge, though. The new average emissions target for new cars in the EU is 95g CO2/km. That's equivalent to 4.1 l/km (57.4 mpg) of gas or 3.6 l/km (65.3 mpg) of diesel. That's already ambitious on paper, but manufacturers are soon required to have cars record the actual consumption of their fleets on the road.
- Tainnor 7y agoIt's more than that. In Germany, you actually have to prove that the firing was really necessary from a business point of view. Given the current government measures (Kurzarbeit etc.) and the fact that it's not clear the role wouldn't come back in a couple of months, it's contested whether covid19 and subsequent lack of funding is a valid reason for termination. But IANAL. Of course, just because you could doesn't mean you actually should sue. For one thing, as a tech worker you're probably better off just finding a different job; if you're someone from a different profession who has a harder time finding jobs (or you're pregnant or sick or something), it's different of course. I am just saying this because I was fired (together with my whole team) recently for very dubious reasons and while I did get severance, I am not sure it would have been actually legal (especially after it turned out the reasons they gave us were largely bullshit). But in the end it wouldn't have been worth it going into a legal argument.
- gigatexal 7y agoYou’re the second person to say this. Unfortunately I already signed the termination agreement. Honestly it’s probably better I just find a new role even though I think legally it’s a bit suspicious given the history of the company to experience mass layoffs.
- Tainnor 7y agoI agree, as a tech worker it's probably easy enough to find another job, so it's not worth fighting over this.
- dang 7y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22887561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22887561.